Pairing Drabbles
by Unique .F
Summary: A challenge set by the wonderful bluefrosty27 to try and write a oneshot of each of the fifteen main ships in the ROTG fandom. I decided to give it a try. ;) Well, I got this far in and decided to just throw my hands up and admit- nope, I'm going to end up doing the books too. If you have a request to see a pairing, drop me a PM, but I intend to do all of them.
1. Rotten Eggs

_Rotten Eggs- Pitch/Bunny_

The Warren was a haven of eternal springtime. The sun was always bright and warm, suffusing the fresh green shoots with buttery yellow sunlight. The temperature, comfortably lazy, heady like the long, slow days of summer. The soil was rich and earthy, and the grass springy and soft, perfect to dig weary feet into.

The air was scented with the fragrance of the egg-flowers, a sweet, sharp smell that reminded Bunny of honeysuckle mixed with the soothing notes of lavender. The swirling colourful rush of the dye-river, an ever-shifting mix of aqua blues, electric greens, indigo purples, rose pinks, every colour at once imaginable, produced a cheerful splashing as it eddied and flowed around the gently sloping banks.

It was about mid-morning, translated into a beautiful day inside the Warren, clear, baby-blue skies empty overhead, the sun's great golden eye smiling benevolently down upon the hunched form of the Easter Bunny, paintbrush and awaiting egg held meticulously in his immaculate paws. He had been doing this far too long to mat paint in his fur.

He tilted the egg carefully in order to reach the underside, wincing as it pulled sore muscles. He would much rather be asleep still on a morning like this, especially after the particularly tiring activities of the previous night, but the dark spirit still curled up in his nest preferred to leave in the morning without speaking to his host.

Pitch never stayed overlong in the Warren the morning after. Bunny would rise with the dawn, as he always did, leave for perhaps a few minutes, and by the time he got back, Pitch would be gone, nothing but the healing scratches on Bunny's back and occasional bitemark to prove he had ever been there. The first few times, Bunny had been hurt, enraged, even, thinking that Pitch had played him, used him and then dropped him once he had got what he had wanted.

He liked to think Pitch needed their strange closeness just as much as he did, craved their shared nights with the same intensity Bunny thought of them. It seemed that way certainly, when Pitch would approach him like he had the previous day, a ready taunt on thin lips, baiting the barely tamed aggression that still ran beneath Bunny's skin until he was taut with fury and anticipation, because Pitch never came to him to fight anymore, since the truce.

Bunny heaved a sigh at the thought of it. He'd been rough with Pitch, rougher than usual. He'd left a small pot of healing salve beside the dark spirit when he left that morning, he hoped Pitch wouldn't be too proud to use it. Pookan herbal salves were legendary for their healing abilities, and though Pitch seemed to wear the bruises with pride, it always shamed Bunny when he saw Pitch still moving stiffly weeks later.

There was a scuff of footsteps against grass, and Bunny's ears lifted, partly in shock, partly to identify the intruder. He paused, the paintbrush held to the smooth shell of the egg, laden with colour ready to decorate.

It could be no other; there was only one who stepped so lightly, a shadow against the grass, yet with great fluidity of movement, like a cat poised to spring. Pitch. He knew Bunny could hear him approach, evidently, and stopped a respectful distance away, uncharacteristically diffident, waiting to see if he were welcome.

Bunny began to etch a spiralling pattern of bright yellow on the egg in silent answer; in all appearances he was concentrating entirely on the painting, but his every sense was alert and attuned to Pitch's presence beside him.

The Nightmare King lowered himself to sit gingerly cross legged beside Bunny. His long grey fingers picked the grass; he made no move to speak.

Bunny considered him carefully out of the corner of his eye, taking note of Pitch's stiff, uncomfortable posture. He had borrowed one of Bunny's long green robes- unworn now for the better part of a century. The robe would billow about him, if not for the length of rope he had tied about his slim waist, and the dark green sleeves had been rolled up to the elbow, exposing his pale grey forearms. Visible beneath the loose neck of the robe were a painful medley of dark purplish bruises, and just beneath his collarbone, one particularly vicious bite that made Bunny wince.

The silence stretched on, seconds passing like minutes to Bunny, who felt an immense urge to question this sudden change in their almost-comfortable routine. Did this mean Pitch was ready, perhaps, to see him as more than a reluctant ally who occasionally slept with him? It was a twofold agony; Bunny wanted at once to demand an answer from the taciturn Boogeyman even as he witheld his words for fear of breaking their silence and scaring Pitch off with his impulsive behavior.

Pitch swallowed, his long elegant neck bobbing gracefully, and almost shyly, said quietly, "...I borrowed your robe."

"'S'alright," Bunny responded gruffly, and then, at loss, asked, "...D'ya wanna paint some eggs?" Somewhere, birds trilled.

A barely perceptible hesitance made itself known as Pitch's yellow eyes flicked to Bunny, surprised. "...Alright." Unsure, the Boogeyman gently plucked an egg from the pile beside Bunny, balancing a paintbrush awkwardly between his long thin fingers, as if he did not quite know what to do with it. He watched Bunny's movements intently, head slightly cocked in a manner that absurdly reminded Bunny of a curious crow.

"Dip it in th'river," Bunny instructed, "Think oftha' shade ya want. The river does th'rest."

Pitch swirled the paintbrush through the glittering water, his eye catching on the shade of Bunny's fur against the sunlight, silver gilded into bright hot wires of white. To his surprise, the brush came out dripping with that exact colour, sharp silver, too bright to be called grey. He smiled.

It was much harder than it looked when Bunny was doing it. The paint got everywhere but where Pitch wanted it to go, all over his fingers and hands, silver against dark grey. When he tried to turn it over, the smooth egg slipped in his palm, falling onto his lap and smearing the green robe silvery. Despite himself, a self-deprecating laugh fought it's way past Pitch's lips, and without realising, he raked his hand awkwardly through his black locks.

Bunny chuckled, a surprisingly deep sound. The Pooka's eyes were emerald green and lit up in amusement; the sight made Pitch's breath catch, and he felt the beginnings of an awful flush on his cheeks.

"I ruined it," he said lightly, as if it didn't matter that he had absolutely failed, messed up an egg when Bunny had trusted him with the duty he prized as sacred above all else.

He bit his lip between his sharp teeth, casting his eyes downwards to the abandoned egg on the grass, messy paintbrush beside it. The memory of that Easter rose, sharp and bitter like a shard of glass in his throat, and Pitch's nails dug into the skin of his palms so hard he felt blood well up.

"It can be fixed, Pitch," murmured Bunny with unfamiliar gentleness, setting his finished egg aside.

He reached out and found the Nightmare King's tightly clenched hand, smeared in paint and blood. Pitch watched, feeling detached and immediately aware as Bunny's paw carefully worked his fingers open, smoothing away the blood with the back of his paw, Pitch's dark blood stark against the grey-silver of his fur.

Bunny lifted the ruined egg into Pitch's hand, dipping his paintbrush into the dye river and evening the shade Pitch had attempted to do, adding a neat scrollwork of intricate black and purple lines that reminded Pitch of the fluid shapes of Nightmares, contained within the arrow-like shapes of Bunny's tattoos.

_It can be fixed, Pitch._

Unexpectedly, Pitch felt his eyes burn and his throat grow tight. He swallowed the uncomfortable feeling, closing his eyes tightly, but allowing himself the gentle mercy of resting his head against the warm fur of Bunny's shoulder. He waited stiffly for Bunny to push him away, but Bunny made no other movement then to reach for another egg.

Later, with Bunny's arm looped around his waist and his paws carefully guiding Pitch's awkward hands, Pitch finally managed to paint an egg's basecoat to a standard Bunny deemed 'acceptable', if only to see Pitch's face light up in a small, shy, genuine smile, Bunny would never be more grateful that Pitch had decided to stay.


	2. Christmas Eve

**Thank you, human bean! *winces* I've never tried writing half of these pairings before- and I've certainly never written Bunny before. It's a rather steep curve I am afraid. ;) **

_Christmas Eve -North/Sandy_

It was midway through the month of November, and preparations for Christmas were fully underway at the North Pole. Yetis were feverishly making toys from the icy blueprints appearing every day from the master workshop. Elves were running everywhere, shrieking with excitement and generally getting underfoot. It was gearing up to the most busy month of the North Pole's calendar.

North himself had not slept in almost a week, surviving off borrowed energy and a lot of Yetish coffee, which was strong enough to strip bark from trees. He had to make this Christmas the best in years, to make up for Pitch's attack last Easter- the children deserved it, and the Guardians needed the swell of belief it would bring.

Tapping a block of ice carefully, North watched with his customary wonder as the perfect model of an aeroplane, complete with waving pilot in the cockpit, took shape under his broad hands. He grinned widely with a deep laugh, throwing the little plane up into the air and beaming as the tiny rotor he had just spent hours carving began to spin.

Thankfully, when Phil smashed open the door to gruffly announce Small-Gold-Sleep-Man had now drunk his way through the fourth barrel of eggnog and some of the yetis were getting concerned about their stores lasting, the plane was able to dart up and out of the way. North cheered it vigorously, before the meaning of Phil's garbled words caught up to him and he froze in confusion, bushy white brows drawing low over his blue eyes.

Small...Gold...Sleep...Man. Not for the first time, North cursed the yetis' hatred of 'ordinary' names, though really, with a name like that, there was really only one person it could be. Let alone that Sandy was the only creature alive capable of drinking four barrels of North's special eggnog and still remain upright, and relatively coherent.

"Sandy?" he asked, just to be sure, and Phil nodded, his furry moustaches bouncing. The yeti looked genuinely concerned. "When did he get here?" North mused, stroking his beard.

Phil gave North an exasperated look the Russian missed. He had warned North barely an hour and a half ago that the Small-Gold-Sleep-Man had arrived, but yet again, North had been so engrossed in his own creations even Tall-Dark-Shadow-Man attacking the Pole had required Phil come in and tell him he was there.

"You should have said something, Phil!" North said heartily, "We must greet our guest, da? Cannot leave Sandy waiting in cold!"

Phil followed North as he strode boldly out of the room, muttering to himself, "Small-Gold-Sleep-Man didn't seem cold when he almost fell in the fire ten minutes ago."

It was a rather flushed and giggly Sandman that greeted North as he entered the large room set aside for when the Guardians were visiting the Pole, surrounded by empty cups and dozing elves. Sandy's gold eyes were bright and slightly glazed, and his cheeks were shining orange. He was glowing erratically, like a wobbling candle flame, and the sand above his head formed into woozy and confused shapes that chased each other like a dog trying to catch it's own tail.

Despite himself, North laughed, a big, deep belly-laugh, rendered helpless by Sandy's innocent confusion as he tried to form the sand into respectable pictures, only for it to seemingly gain a life of it's own and ignore his commands.

Eventually, Sandy gave up and tried to get up, only to misjudge the amount of strength needed to float and went shooting upwards like a cork out of a bottle. He hit the ceiling with a sad twinkle of sand and bounced straight off, cannoning into North and knocking the burly Russian back a step.

Suddenly faced with an armful of wriggling Sandman, North did what any self-respecting man would do and poked him in the nose. Sandy went cross-eyed trying to stare at North's finger, and then apparently had some difficulty focusing his eyesight back on his face, making North laugh again.

"Sorry, old friend," North chuckled as Sandy pouted. Seeming to forgive him, Sandy threw his little arms around North's neck and rubbed his golden cheek against North's beard, nearly causing North to inhale a large amount of loose dreamsand that floated off from Sandy's hair. Just in time, North closed his mouth, well acquainted with Sandy's habit of shedding dreamsand wherever he went. Oddly enough, Sandy looked slightly disappointed.

Sandy went lax against North, arms still locked around his neck. North sighed. He had fallen asleep.

"Sandy." North shook him lightly. "Sandy- Sandy! SANDY!"

Nothing. Sandy's head lolled against North's shoulder contentedly. The dreamweaver's eyes were closed and there was a peaceful smile on his lips, betraying the deceptively powerful grip he had around North's neck.

Cautiously, North tried to unpick the Sandman's hands, only for his hold to tighten like a strangler vine. Exasperated, North finally concluded that not even he could do this impossible task and made for the residential wing of the Pole, where the guestrooms were kept ready for use.

Sandy was easily small enough for him to hoist against his hip with one powerful arm, leaving North free to open the door to the guestroom designated as Sandy's, decorated in careful paintings of golden beaches and the deep sea creatures Sandy loved by North's own hand.

Unlike the others, he did not have a dresser or the like, since Sandy appeared to either wear clothes made of his own sand or not wear clothes at all, (that had been an awkward discovery for all the Guardians, save Sandy, who had been equally unbothered either way) but an adult sized bed and a deep nesting pile of cushions in the floor.

He stood beside the bed and tried to prise Sandy's hands apart, but they may as well have been welded for all the good it did. North huffed, stooping over the bed, he laid Sandy against it and tried to gently shake him awake enough to let go.

"Sandy...Sandy," he called gently, "Sandy, wake up. WAKE UP!"

Startling into wakefulness, the little dreamweaver suddenly shot up and tugged his small hands through North's beard, blinking dazedly at the Russian. He smirked when he recognised where he was, and the golden eyes when they focused back on North were downright suggestive. Sandy seemed better for the small nap, already, he was able to concentrate on North fully.

Slightly disturbed, North attempted to break free, but Sandy only tightened his hold to the point of pain. North winced, held captive by a tiny golden man who barely measured past his knee.

Sandy frowned at him lightly, and North suddenly found himself very aware of the deep bags beneath his eyes and the lines in his face from pre-Christmas sleep deprivation. Quickly guessing where Sandy's mind was headed, he attempted to forestall the inevitable.

"-Ah, Sandy-"

Rolling his eyes, the little man planted a dry kiss on North's cheek. Immediately, North's eyes grew heavy, and he spoke around a yawn, "...not...fair..." It suddenly seemed a very good idea to just lie down next to Sandy, only for a little while, just for a brief snooze...

North collapsed across the bed, a very satisfied Sandman cuddling into his side. The last thing North saw before he gave in to the irresistible lure of sleep was the smug little smirk on Sandy's lips, the smirk of a plan well-executed.

North never went without sleep before Christmas again.


	3. Nightmare Before Christmas

_Nightmare Before Christmas- North/Pitch_

It was an exceptionally cold Christmas, that year. North suspected that Jack had been up and about, all too eager to provide the 'perfect' snowy Christmas to everyone he could possibly reach- forgetting, perhaps, that not everyone had the resources to welcome a snow day, as they sat shivering around a meagre stove. No doubt Jack had only meant well, trying to help North out by providing the postcard perfect background for his day. Moon knew North loved Jack like the son he had never had, but the forever-young boy had no fear of consequence. He only meant to have a little fun...but Jack had not grasped yet that what was fun for one boy living in a warm house in America was less so for the other living on the street in London.

Dawn was blushing, pale and shy, over the rooftops of the isolated town in northern Germany. It had been Christmas Day here for almost six hours already, but North had only just finished delivering the last of his presents to the houses, swaddled with extra blankets. The increased weight had slowed the reindeer and tired them more than they were used to- adding just one blanket to every child's present all over the globe was a substantial amount.

North was exhausted, and the reindeer little better. The magnificent beasts were too noble to complain, but their great antlered heads hung low, and their steaming breath came in fast pants. The sleigh was almost empty now, just one small package left, an innocuous bundle, stowed carefully against the side of the sleigh. With a weary sigh, North stretched, hearing the kinks in his back popping as he searched around on the globe for the last location.

The warm yellow light flashed above Burgess, to North's confusion. There was no way he would forget the Last Light and his friends on his rounds, and he was very much certain he had gone in and delivered their presents already. So who was it? Judging by the colour- reassuring gold instead of dark orange, the colour of a Naughty List offender, this one was on the Nice List this year. For the life of him, North could not remember a Nice Lister he had not delivered to in Burgess.

North plunged his hand into one of his deep pockets, groping about for this year's Nice List. He always had a written copy with him, just in case his memory failed, although it had never once done so in all his time as Santa Claus. Disturbing that it was happening now, but North supposed it had been a difficult Christmas. He would have to have a gentle talk with Jack.

"Aha!" North said triumphantly, pulling out a battered piece of paper scrawled with hurried writing. The reindeer snorted impatiently, eager to get back to their warm stalls; he hushed them idly, scanning the Nice List quickly with sharp blue eyes.

"Bennett, Sophie, Bennett, Jamie, Montgomery, Pippa..."

No, he definitely had delivered to everyone- _wait._

One name caught his eye, one name that was most definitely _not _supposed to be on there. Scrawled, innocently, in North's own hand, was the name, _Black, Pitch._

"What?" muttered North, scowling at the Nice List. Had he made a mistake...? What in the name of the Moon was _Pitch Black, _the _Boogeyman, _doing on the Nice List? Normally, he was top of the Naughty List- just above Jack Frost, though North had never dared to tell Jack that Pitch was the true holder for most number of years on the Naughty List, for fear it would spark a truly horrific prank war of terrible proportions...As far as North could remember, Pitch had never been on the Nice List, ever, not once in the many centuries North had been a Guardian.

Suspicion soured in North's belly. This gave him a bad feeling. Pitch was up to something, he had to be.

_So soon after Easter? _A quiet voice in the back of his mind doubted, but North ignored it. He had no wish to recall the Boogeyman's screams as he was dragged underground by his pseudo-cannibalistic Nightmares.

"Ya!" he shouted, cracking the reins. The reindeer leapt forward, their great hooves striking sparks against the concrete as they charged forwards, scraping the runners of the sleigh over the icy ground.

_To Burgess._

When they appeared in the sky over Burgess, it was midmorning. North cursed himself for forgetting the time difference and quickly urged his reindeer above the cloud cover, thankful for Jack's snowy habit causing a thick grey cloak to line the sky, before he could be spotted.

He peered cautiously over the edge of the sleigh as they shot over the woods in a graceful arc, hunting for any gap between the trees. There was Jack's pond, permanently frozen over and curled with artful frost designs, a clear sign Jack was in residence. North directed his reindeer to land the sleigh onto the thick ice, assuming Jack wouldn't mind if he used his pond as a landing pad.

Jack was not there, presumably he was down in Burgess with Jamie. North smiled at the thought of the friendship between the two boys, despite their rather gaping differences. Jack needed someone close to his own age, physically, at least.

North wished he had brought his sabers as he made for the dark hole leading to Pitch's lair. The broken bedframe was long gone, but the pit in the ground gaped like a screaming mouth of absolute blackness, a hungry void swallowing up all tentative rays of light that dared penetrate it. Only the prismatic gleam of ice slicking the walls of the tunnel reflected weak light back at him.

Shifting from foot to foot, North considered his options. He was alone, weaponless, going to face the Boogeyman. If this was a trap, it was almost impossible odds against him.

North grinned. He liked winning those fights the best.

Without further ado, he leapt into the darkness.

Almost immediately, the world around him turned sightless, only vague ideas of the tunnel walls around him as he hurtled downwards, his great red coat flapping. He landed on slick ice, and had North been anyone else, would have slipped. But Nicholas St North had been up and down far icier and dangerous slopes ever since he was a boy, and so landed with a compact thud of boots on solid ice.

It was freezing cold in the darkness of Pitch's lair, and North's breath made plumes in front of his face as he reluctantly left the light of the entrance behind, forging ahead bravely into the darkness. Despite the danger, probably because of it, he found his heart beating faster, that wild sense of adventure that had lured Nicholas the bandit to seek powerful treasures all around the world. He wondered what there was to find down here in this inky cavern- what did Pitch have, hidden away in this gloomy mausoleum?

He emerged into a grand, sweeping cavern, dizzyingly high, a confused labyrinth of staircases and broad, spanning bridges made entirely of cracked grey stone, worn weary with age and dust. Vicious empty cages, made entirely of lead and flanged in appearance, hung from thick chains that connected to a ceiling smothered in darkness, uncountable lengths high above. Weak shafts of light only served to deepen the pools of shadows liberally blurring every surface, tricking the eye with deceptive corridors that were not there. Ice gleamed sharply over the walls, shadow-tainted and spiked, frozen drips of water creating towering, milky stalagmites and stalactites, twisting, oily darkness bleeding lazily underneath the frost.

North stared in wonder, his eyes wide. He had never expected the Nightmare King's lair to be so...beautiful, and yet it was undeniably artful, and well suited to the tall shade, moving as easily through shadow as air, weary grey stone blending with his skin tone, able to be visible as little more than gleaming teeth and eyes in the dark...He shivered unconsciously in the frigid silence, dark thoughts of being chased through this eclipse labyrinth, shadows and fear stalking his every step.

Speaking of fear...where was the Nightmare King? He had to know of North's presence by now, but the lair was as silent as a tomb. The hair on the back of North's neck prickled.

He moved forward cautiously, striking out in a random direction across one of the bridges. Curiously, he peered over the low stone balustrade, but all that met him was an empty pit of yawning darkness. North pulled his head back over the bridge before he could give in to the sudden, intense urge to leap into the arms of the blackness.

Suddenly, something caught North's eye, a familiar figure, slumped over on the bridge, a motionless huddle against the icy, smooth stone. North's eyes widened in shock and horror.

It was Pitch Black; undoubtedly, but the Boogeyman looked smaller and weaker than North had ever seen him before. He was curled in a ball, a shivering huddle of bones, frost curling over the black of robes that suddenly looked far too big on the thin frame.

The prevalence of ice, the reopened entrance slotted into North's mind, and his steps slowed, heavy with a curious pity. Jack had probably been sending blizzards down into Pitch's lair for weeks, turning the underground cavern into an icy deathtrap for any creature who was not at home in winter. Even North recognised it was cold, and he lived at the North Pole.

At the height of his power, a little chill would hardly faze Pitch at all, but as North approached, he could clearly see Pitch's flesh, bitten purple and swollen with the icy touch of winter. His knees were drawn tightly to his chest, like a child curling in on himself. He was too cold to shiver anymore, too cold to feel the danger he was in. He also appeared to be unconscious, drawn into some restless nightmare by the frown on his pallid face.

_Pitch was on the Nice List this year...but the only reason he would be was because he was physically unable to do his duties._

North knelt beside Pitch, scanning the spirit with a practised eye. Pitch was lucky, North had dealt with many similar cases before, and had Pitch been an ordinary man, he would already be long dead. North hesitated.

He could not deny it felt shameful to see Pitch like this, proud, arrogant, undeniably sensuous in his prime, reduced to a weak and shuddering thing, all bones pressing tautly against chilled white skin.

It took North barely a moment to deliberate. He lifted Pitch against his chest carefully, the Nightmare King nestling unconsciously into his warmth in a manner that made North smile. With quick strides, he made to leave. He had to bring Pitch back to the Pole, and the warmth therein.

* * *

Pitch woke slowly some days later, warmer and more comfortable than he remembered feeling in centuries. He was no longer in his lair turned prison, but in a soft, massive bed, heaped with many Christmas-themed blankets. The room was dim, heavy curtains drawn across the window, only a single candle and a banked fire in the hearth providing illumination, but it was more than enough for Pitch's shadow-sensitive eyes.

There was only one place he could be, and Pitch's eyes darted around the room with the beginnings of panic, clutching the warm swelter of blankets covering his skinny frame. Clearly, someone had removed his shadow robe while he slept, and bathed him, for he was dressed in a clean set of green pajamas printed with absurd dancing reindeer, and his jet hair fell softly against his cheeks. He pushed it back absently, eyes fixing on the door as he heard the heavy, measured tread of the Pole's master approach.

The door clicked open, and North's hulking frame filled the doorway. Pitch shrank back against the pillows, too weak to disappear into the shadow beneath the bed as he so desperately wished to.

North was carrying, absurdly, a tray with a mug of steaming cocoa, and a present wrapped in offensively cheerful Christmas paper. The hot scent of the chocolate made Pitch's mouth water.

"Ah, you are awake," North hummed pleasantly, and Pitch stared at him as if he had grown an extra head. The Russian set the cup of hot cocoa down on the nightstand beside Pitch with a broad smile. "Is good to see you conscious, da?" He laughed, a deep, rolling action that seemed to occupy his entire body, from the twinkle in his blue eyes and his flushed cheeks, broad shoulders and powerful chest.

Pitch blinked. He opened his mouth, closed it, honestly at loss at what to say. Finally, he managed a weak, croaky, "...why?"

North seated himself on the bed next to Pitch far too comfortably for the Boogeyman's liking with another hearty laugh at Pitch's confusion. "No one is being alone for Christmastime, Pitch Black. Not even you!" Confidentially, he leaned in and whispered in a voice still louder than most people's shouting, "Nice List this year, da?" North winked. "I made present myself!" With a gleeful little chuckle- was North always laughing? -the Russian pushed the present at him.

_I have fallen into a very strange dream. Presently, I will wake up and the Sandman will beat the living daylights out of me._

"...ah," he said, staring down at the wrapping paper and fighting the urge to throw up violently. It was truly garish, and Pitch shuddered at touching it.

_You are the King of Fear and Nightmares. You can handle some hideous wrapping paper. _Pitch had the suspicion if he didn't play along, he would end up thrown out, and he was really rather reluctant to return to the living hell that damn winter spirit and the nightmares had transformed his lair into. Besides, this was a dream. If Pitch said it enough times, it would be true. Just one hideous dream.

He worked one slim grey finger under the edge of the wrapping paper, wincing as he did so. With slow, careful movements, he unwrapped the gift, being cautious not to rip the offensive wrapping paper, though Pitch's taste screamed at him to throw the piece of trash into the fire and attempt exorcism on North.

Something dark and silky spilled out, and Pitch's mind wandered in strange, horrifying directions over what the garment, for clearly it was at that, actually entailed. He lifted it against the bed, and was unable to stop the twitch of a smile.

It was a dark cloak, sable furred around the collar, traces of gold picked into the hems, and easily long enough for Pitch's tall, lean frame. It also promised to be deliciously warm, especially with the sigils sewn into the fold inside the cloak, of protection against tears and chill. It was a princely gift...and one Pitch could not repay, even if he was in a position to accept anyway.

"I'm your enemy." He stated flatly.

North clapped a hand on Pitch's shoulder. "No one is alone in Christmastime! Truce in effect, da?"

_A truce? _North must have read the doubt on Pitch's face, because he laughed again. "Am thinking cloak will look good on you," he said. "Try it on, da? Is hard to get measurements when patient is asleep!"

Pitch closed his eyes and took a steadying breath. _It's all a horrible dream, _he reminded himself, though it was starting to feel less like a nightmare by now.

He pushed aside the covers and rested his pale feet against the floor. He refused to admit he wobbled slightly when he pushed himself to his feet, and refused to meet North's concerned eyes.

He lifted the cloak and swirled it over his shoulders. It settled perfectly, and suddenly North was in front of him, adjusting the fit with a contemplative look in his eyes.

"Hmm, good," the Russian muttered, pacing around Pitch, twitching the cloak so it hung right over Pitch's thin hips. Pitch froze, eyes wide. "Skinny. Will have to feed you more, da?" North laughed.

Pitch stared at him and wondered if North had hit his head. Maybe Pitch had died- though for the life of him, he could not decide whether this was a heaven or hell.

Clearly North meant for him to stick around for a while. Perhaps...a truce mightn't be so bad.

_Sandman, now would be a wonderful time to wake me up._


	4. Cavity

**Okay this was supposed to be sweet but then it got really sad I am sorry.**

_Cavity- Tooth/Pitch_

Toothiana, Queen of the Tooth Fairy Armies, is born a little girl much like any other in a small village in India. She is a small child, dark of hair but bright of eye, tearing about with the other children her age shrieking with laughter. The deep jungle is nearby, and old women gather the children close around the fire, and tell stories of gamboling apes with the eyes of greedy men leering between the broad-leaf trees and tangling vines, and a Watcher tall and dark who kidnaps bad children who dare wander too far off the winding paths. Toothiana is a fearless child who laughs in the face of such childish danger, and spurs her playmates' admiration with her lack of concern.

"What about the Watcher, Ana?" "Why aren't you scared of the Watcher? He'll come take you away." "You'll be sorry then, Ana!"

"My mother would save me," Toothiana brags, and the children sigh and roll their eyes, because everyone knows that Toothiana's mysterious mother is long dead. But Toothiana knows the real truth; she has met her mother, a beautiful woman with the wings of a great emerald bird, who holds her close in her arms as they swoop over the treetops together; her daughter idolises her. When she is very young, Toothiana often questions why her mother doesn't come down and show the people of the village Toothiana is no liar, that her mother truly is something more than human. She strokes Toothiana's cheek with a feathery pennon, her eyes sad, and tells Toothiana of the Watcher, who whispers in the ears of scared people and makes them fear what they do not know.

"I hate the Watcher!" Toothiana declares, and her father laughs, swinging her up in his arms. "My little warrior queen, Ana. You can't fight Fear for them."

That is a long time ago, now. Toothiana remembers when she hated him very well, every moment of him is etched in her memory. She can never forget.

* * *

Toothiana grips the bars of the cage, unable to stop shivering, caught in the relentless claws of fear. The monkeys gambol and scream around the cage, digging their little clawed hands into the bars, trying to reach Tooth's tender skin, their wicked eyes flashing. Tooth has never been more scared in her life, with her father lying bleeding and silent on the ground- why isn't he moving? Moving to help Mummy, shrieking as the monkeys' clever fingers rip out her glorious feathers, matting them with blood and pain, in agony.

Tooth shouts for her mother, but she is too far gone to hear her, and the laughing monkeys cluster round her mother's faltering body with cruel tormenting jabs that make the ailing Sister of Flight wail in pain.

Tooth screams. No one can hear her. A painful tickling sensation makes her sob, and she looks down to see feathers, soft with down, pushing their way from underneath her skin. Tooth recoils in horror- and that is when she sees him.

He is a tall shadow in the darkness; the Watcher. His eyes gleam yellow like rippling pennons of flame and his intangible form wavers like smoke on the wind. He is staring directly at her, and as he does, Tooth drowns in the rush of terrified awe he brings- her heart pounding, palms slick, the monkeys and her parents fading into the background. Tooth is only dimly aware of the feathers she can feel brushing against her skin, the new trembling wings tentatively testing the air for the first time. She is transfixed in the power of the Watcher's eyes.

A fanglike smirk curves in the dark; impossibly, the cage's door clicks open. Tooth blinks rapidly in surprise and gratefulness; her feathers flutter.

_Fly, _a silken voice purrs, half-thought, half-heard in the back of her mind, dark and cold like the shadows of the Moon, and before she knows what she is doing, Tooth is erupting from the cage in a hurricane of rainbow feathers, shooting up, into the sky.

She is only twelve, and terrified. She never forgets.

* * *

The next time she is crouching on the outskirts of the village she used to live in, watching her old friends compare the treasures she has left them. The jade green of her feathers blend her perfectly into the humid shade of the jungle she hides in. Her precious tooth box is around her neck; she grips it nervously.

Tooth edges forward, half wondering- could she see them? Just- to say hello? It has been so long since Tooth talked to anyone.

The sun goes behind a cloud; the shadows deepen. A prickling chill ruffles her feathers, and Tooth, attuned to her instincts, glances around. A shape draws out of the dark- an inky figure of absolute blackness, yellow eyes. Tooth swallows, she remembers the last time she saw the Watcher vividly.

The teeth split into a cold smirk. The Watcher shakes his head, slowly, disapprovingly, like a tutting parent. Tooth retreats into the jungle.

She is fourteen, and so alone. She never forgets.

* * *

The Monkey King is whimpering with terror under her blade, which is held to his thick neck. His rank body stinks with the sour odour of fear. The animals of the jungle pace around Tooth, eyes burning with fury, jaws slavering and ready to rend in defence of her. Tooth, animal herself, hisses at the captive King, her feathers bristling in disgust. She loathes this wretch, hates every inch of his repellent fur, wide dull eyes, vapid stupidity.

She raises her sword, ready to decapitate the filth and end this hunt once and for all, but a flicker of shadow catches her eye. There is a familiar tingle running down her spine, causing her feathers to puff nervously. The Watcher is here.

Tooth is immediately aware of him, the electric taste of his presence is heavy everywhere, low and deep like the threatening rumble of stormclouds. But the lazy golden stare - half-lidded and hungry like a prowling tiger - is not fixed upon her but the squirming lump of matted fur beneath Tooth's sword.

Tooth glances between the Monkey King and the elusive figure. It is difficult to look at the Watcher, for his form is one of the shadows. Blinking, Tooth makes the connection. Her crest lifts silently in surprise. The Watcher is not here for her, today he dines of the taste of the Monkey King's fear. She cannot say why she knows he is feeding, but there is something inescapably starved in those yellow eyes, and she remembers the spine-chilling, satisfied smirk once the Watcher is done all too well, the smirk of a predator filled.

She digs the swordpoint into the gibbering monkey's neck, gazes in fascination as the Watcher's form solidifies slightly in answer. She strains her eyes, fools herself into seeing the tall, lean shape of a man, perhaps, spiked hair, those dangerous yellow eyes, sharp smile like a blade against the blackness, inclined forward, as if the Watcher cannot bear to pull himself away from the source of his meal. Tooth's breath catches.

The tiny, barely audible sound is all it takes to rip the moment, and the Watcher notices her observing him. The lazy smile becomes a hideous snarl, baring every one of his sharp teeth, and before she can blink, shadows swarm and the Watcher disappears, the lingering sensation of panic his presence evokes fading.

Dazedly Tooth allows the Monkey King to scramble away, perhaps as a peace offering, perhaps to draw the Watcher back again as the animals immediately pounce on the pathetic creature, making him howl and scream in terror and pain. She knows she was not supposed to see the Watcher.

She thinks he is beautiful. She never forgets.

* * *

Toothiana meets the Guardians, following a little girl's knocked out tooth to the Lunar Lamadary and a surprise attack from the monkeys. They give her a name.

_Pitch._

Pitch Black.

The malicious Nightmare King seems unlike her Watcher, cold, cruel, certainly, but she has never sensed true evil about him. She listens to the glowing boy's troubled silence when the rambunctious bandit North tells tall tales of the pervasive trickery of the Nightmare King, and thinks perhaps she is not the only one.

"Pitch Black," she whispers into the night, tasting the name on her tongue. The shadows flicker, she swears for a moment she sees yellow eyes blink in the gloom.

She is confused. She never forgets.

* * *

At the battle at Punjam Hy Loo, the palace of the Sisters of Flight, she sees his face. His skin is the colour of smeared charcoal, his lips are thin and black like snakes and the teeth they hide are sharp enough that Tooth wonders how his lips are not cut to ribbons by them.

He is cold and cruel and gloating, and he moves fluidly like a jungle cat, smooth lines and dark sneers. He calls to her desperately to answer his plea- remove his humanity, remove what makes him _feel. _There is something personal, something more in his eyes- and she recalls vividly the pain of losing her parents, the weakness and terror of being all on her own, struggling to survive in the forest, her only companion irregular visits from winking gold eyes in the dark and a lazy smile when her fear holds her paralysed.

His eyes, in this light, are gold like burning fire, ringed by silver like the timeless eye of the moon. They are open, vulnerable, almost, as they meet hers, _"Don't you see?" _She could do it, too, with the help of the great winged elephant, take away all that makes him a man and reduce him to nothing more than a shadow of his former self. She stares at him coldly, her Watcher, unveiled in all of his jagged, broken magnificence, and thinks sadly- _I could not. _

He has taken a girl captive, for show, perhaps, because his hold on her is weak and he seems ready to give her up, but he has her, anyway, and Toothiana must protect the children. She allows herself to fight against him, tests his strength and courage with her blades. She likes what she finds. His dark manipulation yields him potent allies, and his shadows bat away any who attempt to draw near him, wearing the Guardians down. He is clever. She thinks that she admires, if nothing else, her Watcher's ability for ruthlessness.

She thinks, perhaps, that even she is not cruel enough to take her Watcher's black heart away from him. The cut-glass magnificence of the dethroned King lying, supposedly defeated, against the stone, but with defiance and rage and fear still alight in his eyes is enough to make Tooth's crest tremble- she remembers how it feels to be caged, trapped, with only that last, primal instinct, _fear. _

Tooth is still fighting. She never forgets.

* * *

Tooth is accepted into the Guardians. It feels uncomfortable to suddenly be part of a family, for they are undoubtedly one, after so long alone. She doesn't fit very well with them, but they are relentless in their welcoming acceptance, and eventually even Tooth's feathers are smoothed. They are a mental pressure in her head, North, a clever magician with the endless turns of creativity humming away inside his mind, Bunnymund, eclectic and strange to hide an ancient sadness, Ombric, wise and tired, the girl Katherine, a font of scrawling words and lines, Nightlight, gentle and unassuming, and even the Sandman, thoughts slow and rippling like the movement of constellations through the darkness of space.

She finds the Sandman's company soothing. He does not talk, nor demand, and his slow, circular thoughts ripple with light and inherent goodness, a balm to the subversive thoughts of cloaking darkness and hungry yellow eyes that follow her. If perhaps, the gold of his skin and the gleam of his teeth in his smile make Tooth's heart jump in unexpected ways and her mind leap to dark shapes between the tree trunks, the Sandman does not question it- even once, he lends her a picture-thought, sharp and vibrant like citrus fruit.

_A tall man robed all in black upon a horse as inky as he. Golden eyes like flames out of a grey face, the bladed smile, a taunting voice, "So you are the one the Moon sent against _me?"

She treasures the snippet; his eyes, mercurial and teasing, reveal a lightness of heart fully absent from her own memories of his stare. Once, she thinks, Pitch Black was happy. He is not now.

Tooth wonders if she will ever see him happy again. She thinks she might like to try.

She never forgets.

* * *

They fight many times over the years, Pitch Black and the Guardians. Tooth grows used to attacking him, hurling herself at him with her blades flashing and scythelike wings ready to slash and harm. She never grows tired of the way he moves, dancing out of the way fluidly like smoke over water. Sandman is often the only one who can land a hit, and Tooth doesn't mind that much, though it frustrates her. She supposes it is difficult to explain why she does not really want to harm Pitch Black, she finds him too fascinating, like a puzzle she wants desperately to unpick.

He is complex, there are so many layers to him. He is so much more than an evil villain.

She never forgets.

* * *

Tooth has been a Guardian for centuries now.

She still flies with her fairies. She cannot get over seeing the children, contented and happy as she never was. She loves seeing the evidence of her job paying off, protecting every one of those precious memories is a gift unlike any other. It's harder to direct them when she is in the field herself, but she wouldn't give it up for the world.

The meeting happens in an abandoned alley in Dubai.

He is slinking among the rubbish bins, insubstantial as a whisper. He is leaning close to a small girl, skinny and terrified with long dark hair and bright eyes. He does not speak, nor move, but just...watches.

_Watcher in the Dark, _she thinks, alights carefully on top of the roof. The girl's eyes stare glassily right through her, and Tooth feels a pang in her heart. The girl is beyond the work of good memories now, she no longer believes in the Tooth Fairy, now, she is at fear's mercy.

"Come to chase me away?" he asks, voice hard and sharp, and Tooth shakes her head quietly, unable to speak.

All she knows is that she does not want to rupture this moment, she and him, for once not engaged in a duel for their lives, but standing, taut and very much at war, over the shaking body of a little girl beyond Tooth's aid.

He dismisses her, and sinks to his knees beside the girl, bending close to whisper in her ear. Tooth cannot hear what he says, but whatever it is, it is enough to make the little girl startle in terror, and leap to her feet, racing away into the brightly lit metropolis. Tooth considers following her, but then she sees Pitch, a curious ache in his gold eyes, staring at her. She hesitates, somehow aware of the tentative accord between them, and knows if she mistrusts his action and checks, it will be shattered once and for all.

Tooth remains where she is. Pitch's smile is cold and deadly, but his eyes are softer than Tooth has ever seen them before as he watches the little girl leave.

The look in his eyes. She never forgets.

* * *

..

* * *

She pretends she doesn't avoid him after that, but it's almost the truth. She knows he is everywhere, she sees him in every lurking shadow, every skittering spiderbite, every gleaming flash of yellow. Her work keeps her so very busy, and eventually Tooth realises it has been over four hundred and forty years since she last left the ruins of Punjam Hy Loo, which she calls her Tooth Palace.

Then the summons come, and Tooth listens with a sick feeling of dread mixed with sharp shards of excitement when North tells her the Boogeyman has risen again. It can't be wrong that she wants to fight him again, can it?

Then she feels the distress from her fairies- and watches through a million tiny eyes as great, dangerous Nightmares made of inky sand swallow up her little fairies, plunging them into an icy trap of darkness and fear.

_-tallman-blackhorse-goldeyes-"soyouretheone-themaninmoon-senttome?"-_

Pitch Black is stealing the teeth, is attacking Tooth directly, and it never feels like a greater betrayal. Her Watcher- she had always had an illicit sort of fondness for him, protecting her ever since that cage's door mysteriously broke open so long ago, but the attack abruptly sours her, turns her heart cold with hate.

He has gone too far. Tooth hates him. The past doesn't matter now.

* * *

_"SHUT UP OR I'LL STUFF A PILLOW WITH YOU!" _He roars to her fairies, and Tooth notes absently in the back of her mind she once might have been flattered Pitch considered her feathers soft enough to sleep on. All she feels now is the weakness stealing into her bit by bit, the dreadful fear; and thinks- _why, why. _Tooth has never been more terrified.

* * *

He shoots Sandy cold in the back and Tooth feels her heart turn to ice. Pitch is a vile creature, it's obvious to her now, Tooth wonders why she ever questioned it. She feels Sandy's absence in her mind like a hole ripped in her heart. _No, no. _He can't be gone- but the slow, warm presence of the Guardian of Dreams has been swallowed up forever in that hideous black sand. Tooth has never felt more alone without her oldest friend beside her.

* * *

He gloats, powerful and assured in his nearly-victory, and Tooth is taken aback by the venom rush of hatred she feels for him- there is nothing uglier than evil in it's truest form, which is what Pitch Black has become. She is disgusted to breathe the same air as him, the sight of his twisted yellow fangs makes her stomach churn with nausea. There is nothing uglier than Pitch Black.

* * *

Pitch manipulates Jack like a puppet on a string, and it rips Tooth's heart, but she turns away. There is no turning back from Pitch Black. Jack has destroyed Easter...why didn't he just attack Pitch? It is what Tooth would have done. Tooth has never been surer of anything in her life.

* * *

Tooth is too weak to fly any longer. She tries and falls to Jack's feet, embarrassingly. He laughs it off and helps her up, but all Tooth can feel is the dragging weariness that beckons her to give in, give up. Tooth is too weak to fight it now. Tooth is too weak to fight at all. She has to stand by while a child attempts to protect her from Pitch Black and feels like laughing until she cries. Tooth can't fight.

* * *

The black sand turns golden under the children's fingertips, and Tooth watches Pitch's horror with a decadent satisfaction. Sandy reforms from the gold, and the hole in Tooth's mind welcomes him with an abject relief, the cool, slow movement of his thoughts, stirred to an alien anger that Tooth has rarely experienced from him before, but she approves heartily as she watches Sandy lash Pitch expertly, dragging the Boogeyman to his feet. Tooth just wants to see Pitch _hurt._

* * *

Pitch is nothing more than a vicious shadow, and he is punished like the animal he is. She punches him, hard enough that one of his vile teeth fly out across the ice and blood pours from his gum. He gives her a look, and Tooth scorns him with a glare. She doesn't care. Pitch is nothing more than a hated enemy.

* * *

He screams when his own nightmares drag him away, and there is panic and terror in his eyes, wide with pleading, but Tooth is immune to his stare. She feels no pity, no sympathy for him. He deserves this, he brought it fully upon himself. Let the nightmares rip him apart, let them destroy him. He knows what they will do, she can see it in his eyes. Tooth thinks coldly the tears in his eyes are the first of many.

* * *

..

* * *

Weeks have passed.

The Boogeyman has been shut away.

The Watcher in the Darkness is defeated.

Finally, Tooth manages to restore order to her Palace. It takes a long time to get all the teeth back in place and even longer to catch up on the backlog of teeth needing to be collected from children. But belief is as high as it has ever been, and Tooth is happy.

Or she should be, but there is something niggling at her, like a twitching feather, or a misplaced tooth.

_A tooth._

She frowns, closes her eyes, concentrates on the powers that alert her to newly fallen teeth everywhere. The tooth is difficult to get a hold on. Somewhere near Burgess, but she can't get a clearer read on it that. "Girls," she calls, "Burgess." She hears the buzz of wings and an affirmative chirp. One of her girls is after the tooth, and Tooth turns back to her job with relief.

It's a little while before the fairy returns, but when she does, an ominous silence spreads across the Tooth Palace, and everywhere across the world, the fairies' wings stop beating for a brief moment as Tooth's heart skips a beat.

Nestled in her palm is an ugly shark like tooth. Pitch's tooth.

She presses it into her palm, but all she can see are flashes of her own memories- but wait, they are not hers, they are..._Pitch's memories of her..._

_She is terrified, and he sets her free. She is alone, and he comes to her. She is beautiful, and he protects her. She is confused, and he reassures her. She is fighting, and he gives her something to fight against. She is sad, and he tries to make her happy (he doesn't think he succeeds). She is complex and intricate, and he loves her mercurial temper. She looks at him and in her eyes there is a gaze that whispers of a shared heart and a dream he wishes they both share, in her eyes there is a thousand possibilities._

The realisation slams into her like a freight train.

Toothiana has forgotten.


	5. Jackrabbit

_Jackrabbit- Jack/Bunny_

Jack peered suspiciously into the glowing purple timelapse warp, reaching out to poke it with his staff. The wood instantly aged and renewed itself. Jack frowned. Absently, he brushed a lock of brown hair back from his shining forehead. His skin felt itchy and too hot, a side-effect of being too close to the errant warp. Jack sighed and closed the fridge door. No milk for tea, then.

"BUNNY!" he shouted, but there was no reply. The human sighed in annoyance. No doubt the time-travelling Pookan mage was engrossed in his experiments again, and had forgotten to clean up the timelapse in the fridge eating their milk.

He padded into the workroom, scratching his stomach idly with a yawn. They'd been exploring 16th Century Earth Paris the previous night, a break from the heavy terraforming projects Bunny was used to, evening up planets and making them suitable for life. He liked to brag frequently about making the Earth spherical and popping off to do Australia while he was at it.

Jack, strictly speaking, was absolutely forbidden to even see Bunny, let alone hang out, live with him in his Warren for weeks on end and help out with his projects. He was somewhen from colonial era America, and had tripped and fallen through one of Bunny's portals- accidentally left open- ending up in the frequently absentminded Pooka's warren. Bunny had been just as surprised as Jack to see the skinny human boy there. Jack had begged to stay, and Bunny eventually gave in. Although Jack was not certain if this was because he had simply forgotten to return Jack to his original time period. Jack had been the irascible rabbit's companion and eager assistant ever since.

"Bunnnyyyy!" he whined, spotting the hunched form of the Pooka craning over some foul green concoction, his thick jade glasses pushed low over his twitching nose like something out of the _Wizard of Oz _play he had taken Jack to see once. The stained hems of his once-green robe dangled carelessly into the mixture- emitting yellow puffs of smoke as it ate away at the material. The clever furred paws were cautiously adding a measure of quicksilver to the tincture.

He didn't appear to have noticed Jack yet, so the human boy wandered up behind him and tapped his shoulder (Jack had very quickly stopped startling the self-proclaimed Master of Tai Chi- whatever that was, it became very painful for Jack). A long ear flicked in annoyance. Jack grinned.

He sidled up behind the Pooka and splayed his hands over the thick furred, muscled chest of the sorcerer, resting his chin on his shoulder. He could feel Bunny's powerful heart beating under his palms.

_"Bunnnyyyyyyyyy..."_

The Pooka huffed and gave up on his experiment. "What, Jack?"

"'M bored," Jack groaned. "Do something interesting."

"This is interesting," Bunny snapped. "Look- it's a mixture that when I put it inside eggs, it will make them explode!"

"Yeah, into candy-pink puffs of smoke," Jack said wryly, "How is that _ever _going to be useful?"

"Maybe if I fight someone with a strong aversion to any other colour but black?" Bunny muttered privately. The Pooka smirked.

Jack frowned. "Who the hell would that be?" There was the Groundhog, sure, but Jack didn't think Bunny had any dire enemies because he never even left his Warren.

Bunny had an annoying habit of referencing things that would happen in the far off future, which Jack did not understand. There was one rule that Bunny absolutely refused to break regarding Jack, and that was to give him knowledge of the future. Anywhen in the past- certainly, Jack had wandered in Viking towns and visited Egyptian pyramids and even seen Mother Nature rising from a meteor, but Bunny refused to give him even five seconds of foreknowledge. If Jack pestered him, the Pooka would clam up entirely and often refuse to talk to him for the rest of that day (and when you were friends with a time traveler, a day could last for a long time.)

As expected, Bunny only hummed noncommittally. Jack ruffled the Pooka's long ears for payback, smirking delightedly when Bunny scowled. "Aww, does the little bunny not like me stwoking behind his ears?" Jack mocked, earning a sharp glare for his actions. Unrepentant, Jack kissed the tip of Bunny's nose and danced away before the temperamental Pooka could hit him.

Bunny breathed in and out slowly, mastering his temper. "_Why _did I ever let you stay?"

"Because you love me," Jack replied cheekily. "And I'm totally the inspiration for all your coolest ideas."

"That is not true!"

"Oh yeah? I totally made the snowdrops. Which are like- the best flower. And who came up with the genius of making _two _poles instead of one? Plus- penguins."

"Sweet stars," Bunny moaned, massaging his temples. "The _penguins _are literally the most wasteful use of a magic egg I think I have ever seen."

"Penguins are awesome, shut up!" Jack defended. He liked penguins. Largely because they irritated Bunny.

Bunny gave him a look. Jack returned with a winning smile.

"When's your next break?" the Pooka asked suddenly, his green eyes turning grave.

"What?" Jack floundered slightly at the topic change. Every little while, Bunny returned him to his time so that he could catch up with his sister. Jack usually spent a day or so mucking around with her before returning to Bunny's side. "I was figuring- tomorrow, maybe?"

Bunny nodded, and then abruptly pulled Jack into an embrace, so tight Jack swore he felt his bones creaking. "Hey!" he yelped, but Bunny did not release him, pressing his furred face into the crook of the shorter boy's neck, his long ears brushing against Jack's cheek.

"You are a good friend of mine, Jack Overland," Bunny told him quietly, and for a moment, his grip tightened to almost painful before he gruffly released him and cleared his throat. "So, where do you want to go now?"

Jack stared suspiciously at Bunny; rarely did he ever spoil Jack so thoroughly. Two adventures in so many days? With a sinking heart, Jack realised Bunny knew something, knew something that was going to happen.

He mustered a smile. "Spin the wheel, I don't mind." Let Bunny have his time and silence.

Energetically the Pooka moved to a large brass wheel set with a number of peculiar symbols he claimed were numbers- though what system that had to the eras to visit Jack was entirely mystified by. With a great heave, the Pooka spun the wheel, watching it slow with his characteristic gruff excitement.

"Thirty, twenty-nine, twenty-eight, twenty-seven!" The spinner stopped and Bunny grinned joyfully. "Jack- number twenty-seven!"

"What's so great about that?" Jack asked, nonplussed. Bunny considered things like watching the evolution of a maple tree interesting.

"Don't be so blue, frosty! 27 is an extraordinarily powerful magical number!" Bunny shouted gleefully, his nose twitching. "Come on Jack- we're off!"

"Right," said Jack, humoring him, "Should I bring my cloak?"

"Yes!" came the shouted response, and with a sigh, Jack went off to collect it. Life with Bunny was certainly never boring.

* * *

The day after, Jack Overland died in a frozen lake whilst protecting his sister, and Jack Frost was born.

He met the last Pooka during the year of '68. There was no recognition. Jack never stopped to ask why Bunny was so upset with him in particular for interfering with his sacred duty.

He regained his memories during the year 2012.

* * *

"You look different now," Jack said unsurely, pausing at the door to the old workroom. It was dusty now, deserted and empty, but if Jack thought hard, he could just about imagine the warm bubbling green mixture, the great brass wheel, the Pookan in his old stained robe with his ridiculous glasses.

"So do you," responded Bunny, carefully painting a dark pattern on one of his explosive eggs.

Jack walked forward, paused. Was he welcome? "I guess you found a use for the candy-pink explosives after all."

A smile twitched on Bunny's lips. "Didya see Pitch's robe when I was done?"

"It was beautiful...but. Could've done with some penguins," Jack praised, in all seriousness trying to keep a straight face, but all it took was one ear flick of irritation and he was laughing like an idiot.

"I hate those damned birds," Bunny groused, but he was grinning too, and his eyes were bright with humor. "Maybe next time?"

"Sure thing, Kangaroo."

"Shut it, Frostbite."

They were different now, it was true, and in some ways Jack knew it would never be the same again. But with Bunny smiling at him and the shared joke between them- Jack knew it hadn't changed much at all.


	6. Blackice

**WARNING, THIS CHAPTER CONTAINS ASPHYXIA/CHOKING. And basically Jack and Pitch cuddling in a very creepy and Blackice manner on a stone bridge.**

_Blackice- Jack/Pitch_

Time had no meaning in the darkness.

Centuries could pass in minutes, and seconds could pass in hours. It was subjective in the garden of shadow; a breathless torment lived out fleetingly in the shadows underneath the hands of a clock.

Jack did not know how long he had been down in the darkness, wandering blindly in the gloom, straining his eyes to see vivid shapes playing tricks on the walls. He had been reluctant to leave the daylight behind, at first, had called his challenges from the crumbling lip of the hole's edge, daring the dethroned King to meet him in the evening sunlight.

Pitch had not come; so Jack pursued the empty shadow into the yawning mouth of his lair, and let himself be swallowed up in that over which Pitch Black reigned supreme.

He had stumbled over countless crumbling stone bridges and called until his voice was raw. Pitch did not emerge, but Jack could feel his power in the prickle of hair on the nape of his neck, the thrill of excitement and adrenaline daring to thunder through his veins.

He had lost sight of the light by now, but strove ever deeper into the darkness, until the shadows were so thick and black Jack could see barely a hand before his face, at first. Uncounted in the dizzying abyss, the hands of a clock spun unseen, and Jack's blue eyes grew used to the darkness, and he could see. It was fortunate, then, by the time Jack was weary enough to stop and wait for the darkness to come to him, he could see into the deepest and inkiest shadow, because the one he hunted was most stained of them all.

When their king came, he came with all the forewarning of a hurricane, a tingling instinct of anxiety turning Jack's spine rigid before the shadows grew eyes and snarling teeth that snapped a hair short of his arm, tearing his sleeve and bearing pale skin that was faded grey in the darkness; he was stained pitch black. And at first, they fought.

Neither Jack nor Pitch bothered with weapons but attacked each other like animals, hurtling fists out of the dark and claws raking over skin. It would have been wiser, easier, certainly, to have brought his staff, but Jack had been without it so long in the meaningless darkness he had forgotten where he had left it, resting innocently against a tree outside the lair. It had seemed wrong to bring the instrument of Jack's lightness and fun into the twisted caverns of selfish desire and indulgence, the haunts of fear and terror he sought.

He did not need it for this bloody work- frost spread like plague over Pitch's robe when Jack managed to get a hold on him, and Jack tracked him with it, attuned to his powers and the pain it caused the Nightmare King, ice stained black and jagged by Pitch's own corruption seething under the surface, or was it Jack's? It was too difficult to tell in the mad, frenzied limbo they occupied, halfway between cold and dark, teetering recklessly on the edge of no return. Pitch rent him with ease, hands growing sharp and deadly with shadow-claws that ripped and tore and sent splashes of icy blood over his fingertips, blood so cold it froze and kissed him with winter, his skin turning black and swollen.

They fought for eons, certainly, as what counted for time in that place hurtled and spun by- it seemed for years Jack would reach, catch Pitch's elbow just there, milliseconds too fast for either of them to observe for the counterattack, the dance away, sweat gleaming and breath catching in panting throats. Whole sections of crumbling stone were destroyed in their battles, and towering spires of nightmare and frost loomed toothily out of the dark like jagged smiles promising the taste of a sweeter life. It was a pause of heady exhilaration- screaming, Jack allowed himself to be degraded, devolved, into nothing more than a relentless _beast _pursuing his blood-lust, an escape offered eagerly by the delighted fervor shared in golden eclipse eyes winking in the dark.

When their bodies grew too exhausted to fight any longer they would collapse against rough stone, relentless eyes searching for the other, allowing their heart to hammer and breath to come back, and honoring some unspoken need, the other would lapse into a crouch, waiting, restless eyes pinning them to their spot, twitching with anticipation. The expected meeting of teeth and claws came like a thunder of titans colliding, the _crack _of unforgiving rock and shrill screams echoing mockingly off the deceptive, open halls; the very lair itself craved their battle, drank their spilled blood and fuelled their crazed fire until they were both incandescent, unknowing of anything but the desire to-

Jack refused to let himself understand the true reason he had left his staff behind and why Pitch would not form his scythe, why they fought like this, hand-to-hand and close, so close he could see the whites of Pitch's eyes and feel the heat from his skin. It ached with every _slap _of Pitch's hand catching Jack's fist, every pulse of burning blood against his hand as his nails dug deep into Pitch's ribs, the skin giving, tearing, the lonely, desperate, hungry _need _for someone who could be _touched _and could _touch _back; the engulfing terror of rejection mindlessly shielding the encounter as nothing more than a brutal fight, giving them both a cover, a mask, a shelter behind which they could hide their broken souls which _tore _just a little more every time someone walked through them as if they were not there. An echoing absolute emptiness, a gravid cold and numbness so deep and dark it swallowed any light.

Each time Jack felt his heart give a little more and knew he had lost yet another small piece of sanity, of Jack Frost, of _fun _and _magic _and _winter, _and it made him laugh, careless and bitter in the dark, in the strange reflection of Pitch Black to Jack Frost- only Pitch knew what it was like, to feel himself slipping away slowly, dying as his own nature ate him alive, everything that made them spirits turning desperately self-cannibalistic as belief failed and they struggled to survive.

If perhaps Pitch's foot slipped, if his leg folded at an inopportune time, giving Jack the upper hand in forcing Pitch to the floor, Jack allowed him to pretend in the accident, allowed them both to ignore the matched desperation in Pitch's eyes as Jack's winter-pale hands closed around his long grey throat and _choked. _He could feel Pitch's chest rising and falling in rapid breaths as he tried to suck in air past Jack's constricting grip, his hips twisting and bucking as he fought to free himself, the demanding heat and solidity of his body, _real, __there, _the childish surety in being able to know for himself that this could not be faked, soothing the howling monster scraping claws like children scratching at locked cellar doors and begging for release inside of him.

Jack felt the delicate movements of Pitch's windpipe fluttering desperately against his hands, the harsh, rasping breaths, and could not stop himself from leaning in closer, until he could feel the pants of air against his cheeks, the panic in Pitch's eyes.

Pitch's hands closed around his own neck in response and tightened like a vice. Jack made a strangled noise; Pitch's hands felt like an iron bar around his neck, burning hot and constricting like a strangler vine, cutting off his air supply. Black spots started to haze in his vision and he could hear drumbeats thudding like giant footsteps somewhere in the distance, matched by a hummingbird tattoo against his hands, Pitch's heartbeat.

A heady power suffused them both- he could kill Pitch, grip his throat until his muscles went slack and his eyes rolled into the back of his head and he gave out, unconscious and flushed against the stone, he could keep going, until Pitch was limp and dead and _all because of Jack, _somehow, he knew Pitch was drinking in his fear, relishing in his own ability- he could drag Jack down into the dark, drop him over a pit and let go, he could dig those sharp claws into Jack's throat and _rip out _his trachea- Jack knew he could. The possibility enticed him more than anything else, that he could effect someone else's life this way.

Eventually in minutes unknown they were both too oxygen starved to continue and Jack fell against Pitch's chest, hands flopping weakly around the head of shadowy black hair lying soft against the stone. His mind spun in dizzying spirals and his vision had been eaten by the shadows; he gasped for air as if he had been drowned, prompted by a urging flesh memory of water closing in over his head, icy numbness and water filling his lungs, making him choke and gasp and beg for air that would not come.

He heard Pitch's labored breathing, felt the sharp bony chest rising and falling erratically underneath him as just as desperately as he, Pitch gasped for air. Jack's forehead was resting against the Nightmare King's collarbones, and the edged protuberances of bone were hard against his brow, proof of Pitch's utter slenderness, and his flesh felt feverishly warm to Jack, bared as it was by the swooping neck of his V-neck robe. Pitch's arms were flung out against the stone, clawed hands digging idle carvings. With Jack's every breath, a small scattering of ice crystals formed strangely beautiful patterns of black frost over Pitch's skin, swirling vines and abstract lines chased through with deep, pure shadow seeping from Pitch's skin. He watched with fascination until his eyes burned and he could watch no more, then closed his eyes in a long blink that lasted a thousand sleepless nights.

Time passed in the strange circular way it did, and still Pitch struggled, but weakly, barely enough to flip them over a few times and all too easily held down by Jack's grip, claws catching in the material of his hoodie instead of ripping straight through it as if it were wet paper to mark the skin beneath. Kindly Jack let Pitch have his futile, not-quite attempts to break free that if anything pressed their bodies closer together, brought more of Jack's weight to bear against Pitch's tall lanky form.

Pitch craved his pride, needed the assurance, the later memory he had not stopped fighting Jack, he had not allowed Jack to simply _take _what comfort he could in his enemy's presence- though really, they both knew the lines had always been blurred between them. Antarctica had only been the most obvious of the strangely flexible fire raging between Pitch and Jack, a fire that expressed itself in the weeping wounds they both shared and the gentleness now in the exploratory press of Jack's pale fingers sliding curiously over Pitch's forearm, mapping the texture of the veins.

Jack knew it had been longer for Pitch, so much longer, wearying away the grind of countless years while he only had the span of three hundred, and that Pitch was probably even more scared than Jack was- there was no denying it, every moment they breathlessly bent the rules between _enemy _a little more felt like the tolling of a death knell- _what would your Guardians say, if they saw us now, you cupping my cheek, stroking my cheekbone with your thumb, I know you marvel over my sharp edges, our breath intermingling, so close we could-but we won't, of course, but, oh, and me, still fighting- of course- but if my hands linger on your back, if my fingers tangle in your hair, and isn't the contrast pleasing, my grey against your white, would they see it? Would they forgive it, you and I, bent double under the weight of those aching years _alone, _come now, don't pretend you haven't dreamed of this, of me, all by yourself in those quiet moments between breaths and blinks and heartbeats? _

Pitch needed this reassurance, a hurting heart too used to flinching away to bare itself too readily, a last shallow mask to _pretend- __"so you want to be alone?"-_it mattered nothing, didn't make his heart beat faster when Jack tentatively tugged on Pitch's hair, smooth soft fingers roughened with years of wielding his staff immediately rubbing against his sensitive scalp in silent apology, providing a tingling feeling in Pitch's nerves he had never felt before, pooling in a heat in his heart and making his toes curl.

Weeks in the wandering dark wasted in this way, silent, questing touches that neither confirmed nor denied, leaving a comfortable grey area they could both retreat into once the desperate fantasy had played itself out- winter spirit and Nightmare King fighting on a low stone bridge- _don't you see, my hand pressing against your stomach is to hold you back, not to reassure you I'm here, I'm real, your arms wrapping around me is to choke my breath away, crush me, not to finally ease that question- what does it feel like to hold someone close to you? But I understand why humans do it now. _

If curious hands dipped too far, invited a new shade to their game neither of them were ready for nor wanted yet- they were content with their platonic searching-all it took was a stiffened muscle, and the other would instantly back off, but couldn't help but note the information in some secret place in their minds- not that they'd need it for future reference, that Pitch would throw back his head and the breath would leave him in a surprised rush if his ears were stroked, or that Jack would shiver when long tapered fingers brushed teasingly over his ribs- _sensitive, there? _

And all around them, the dark pressed, freeing in it's absolute embrace, daring them to further anonymity- in this darkness, Jack could pretend the being he touched was not Pitch, and that he had never wanted it to be, and vice versa, and they could simultaneously admit that _yes _it was Pitch Black and Jack Frost- enemies, but enemies didn't apply when it was so dark all they could see was the gleam of eyes and teeth and patterns of frost, and time had no foothold there.

They needed the refuge it afforded, the secret little lie- _I know what you think of in the darkness- _held just between them and enwrapped by the dark, the mothering dark that pressed velvety wings over everyone else's minds- _Pitch Black? Jack Frost? Just enemies. _

It could have been three hundred years or it could have been three minutes, but when they parted, it was slow, undeniably slow- Jack couldn't help but linger to relearn the shape of a sharp jaw one last time, hear each other's heartbeats thrumming against their pulse points, savor the pale white column of wintry cold throat, bruises the colour of Pitch's skin already starting to bloom.

They rose, silent strangers in the dark, and the King left as he had come- silently, swiftly, only a breath of air and a last caress of Jack's fingers- of hands that longed to entwine, but they were enemies until the last. Though if perhaps there was a trail of darkly glittering nightmare sand that happened to lead conveniently to an exit, well, Jack wasn't going to complain.

When he stepped out into the light, blinking harshly to clear his eyes of the shadow and weary after the long battle- for it had been, what else would they have done, they were just Pitch Black and Jack Frost, he found Sandy holding his staff and smiling at him.

The little dreamweaver offered his staff to him with a warm look in his eyes and pointed questioningly down into the hole. _What were you doing down there?_

"Fighting off a few Nightmares," Jack replied lightly, "How long was I down there?"

Sandy shrugged sheepishly. Above his head, a clock made a full revolution twice. _Two hours._

Jack almost laughed, thought about the life spanning centuries down in the darkness and thought, _time is not the only thing that has no meaning there._


	7. Sweet Tooth

_Sweettooth- Tooth/Bunny_

Tooth disagreed with chocolate.

It rotted teeth, turning them from healthy white to a cracked and hideous yellow-brown no better than Pitch's teeth, it gave cavities. She hated the way she could tell a child who had eaten too many sweets from the scarring of their beautiful teeth. Poor quality teeth ate away at the memories inside- even in adults, it was extremely common to see amnesiacs with terrible teeth and photographic memories with good, strong teeth.

She had never tried chocolate herself, and frankly couldn't see the appeal. Why would the children want to eat something so badly that they would destroy their teeth for it?

Tooth smoothed her crest nervously. _You can do this._

"C'mon, sheila," prompted Bunny, lifting the egg towards her with a mischievous look in his spring-green eyes, and _oh, _why did she ever agree to this stupid bet?

Bunny had been horrified when he learned she had never tried chocolate, and she had been equally determined to prove to him flying wasn't as bad as he made out. Stupidly, Tooth had suggested betting on whether Sandy would start coming on to anything that didn't run away fast enough after the second barrel of eggnog- Bunny had suggested the fifth. Tooth had been so _sure _she would win, she had agreed- Sandy was only short, where was he going to _put _five barrels of eggnog?

To Tooth's awestruck amazement, Sandy had indeed downed exactly five barrels of North's special knockout eggnog known for doubling up as paint stripper and occasionally useful for dissolving solid rock before he had boldly straddled Jack- who by that point was the only one who hadn't cleared out or found something to protect themselves from an overly friendly Sandman- such as a solid rock vault and a month's supply of caffeine (it was a distressingly frequent occurrence) -and had cheerfully told him, yes, Sandy was responsible for _all _his dreams- yes, even _those _ones, did Jack want to come back to Dreamland and Sandy could show him? Tooth held back a snicker at the memory. Poor Jack had looked so uncomfortable, stuttering out a polite refusal, only for Sandy to kiss his cheek and declare he took rejection better than Pitch- speaking of, Sandy's smile had grown rather evil and Tooth tried not to think the last time any of her fairies had reported seeing Pitch was almost three weeks ago after he was dragged, screaming, kicking and begging for mercy into a portal of glowing sand.

By now, the Guardians knew it was best to just not ask.

Tooth eyed the chocolate egg in Bunny's paws with the same look she would pin Pitch's teeth with. _You are Toothiana, the Warrior Queen of the Fairies. You can handle one chocolate egg. Just one. Then it's all over, and you are never betting on Sandy's drinking habits ever again._

She shuddered bravely and resettled her crest. She wished that she had brought her swords. _Right. Come on. _Cringing, she took the proffered treat and held it gingerly between her forefingers, gagging as the sweet, rich smell hit her nose.

Bunny's eyes dared her to give in, but there was no way Tooth would let the Pooka best her.

She popped the chocolate in her mouth in one quick movement, screwing up her eyes as the taste hit her tongue.

There was a pin-drop moment of absolute silence whilst Bunny waited, the smirk on his face only becoming more smug as Tooth hovered numbly, mouth closed around the chocolate and the _delicious _taste melting on her tongue. Her eyes fluttered closed and she breathed out a rapturous sigh.

It tasted _magnificent- _rich dark chocolate that melted in her mouth, smooth, sweet caramel oozing sinfully over her teeth- Tooth could feel herself shuddering at the touch, for everyone knew caramel was the worst of all for teeth but it tasted so _good _Tooth almost didn't care. Guiltily, she thought- _well, it's not my teeth I collect, is it? I'm an immortal spirit..._

Bunny only had time to blink before an insistent Tooth Fairy had slammed into him with the force of a double-decker bus.

_"More!"_

* * *

"Hey, Bunny!" Jack shouted, wandering idly into the Warren. He was still kind of freaked out by Sandy's extremely unexpected revelations and subsequent invitation, and what better way to get over mental scarring was there than annoying the Easter Bunny? Casually, he iced up a section of the dye river, watching as the different colours were frozen inside the ice, bright pinks and baby blues and dark indigos and even a very ugly shade of yellow. Jack hoped Bunny didn't paint eggs that shade, he'd make the kids ill.

"BUNNY!" Cupping his hands over his mouth, he shouted. "BUNNY!" There was no way the Pooka couldn't hear him, and it was rare that Bunny ever left his Warren.

Jack grinned. The fact that Bunny hadn't come out to tell him off suggested one thing. He was busy, extremely busy, probably doing something volatile and dangerous.

_Which meant there was a possibility of explosions._

Jack's exultant smirk was something Pitch Black would be proud of- fanged, creepy, and positively _dangerous. _"Explosions!" Jack hummed happily, finally distracted from terrifying wonderings about dreams and their whip-wielding master with the contemplation of reducing the Warren into one large mushroom cloud of soot. _Everyone _loved explosions.

"Wind," Jack called, "Find me Bunny." The Wind swirled around him, considering, before sending a breeze definitively pointing to the right. "Thanks," Jack said, and the Wind ruffled his hair fondly. He padded over in the direction indicated as silently as possible, planning to jump out and surprise Bunny. _Explosions _were too enticing to ignore.

Any thought of stealth quickly evaporated when he rounded a large rock, replaced by the sudden need to scream loudly, endlessly, and scrub his eyes with bleach.

Bunny was hand-feeding chocolate to Tooth, who had melted chocolate smeared all over her feathers and face. She looked like some sort of offering to a hedonistic god of chocolate, and Bunny was no better- his arms and chest were matted with chocolate that had clearly rubbed off of Tooth, who was sitting in his lap as if such a thing was perfectly normal.

Jack shrieked loud enough to cut glass.

"Jack!" yelped Tooth, her hands flying to cover her mouth guiltily.

Jack had had enough. In one day- _one day, _he had been propositioned by the Sandman, kicked out of the Pole for trying to drink away the mental scarring, forced to witness two of his friends being disgustingly sweet, and denied _explosions._

"_I'M GOING TO JOIN PITCH!" _Jack wailed in horror and fled as fast as he could, leaving the pair behind him looking at each other awkwardly.

"Do you think he's actually going to do it?" Tooth finally broke the silence.

Bunny paused, considering. "Nah, I'm fairly certain Pitch wouldn't take him. Too irritating."

"Speaking of- does anyone actually know where Pitch is...?"

"Sandy does, and that's good enough for me," Bunny said firmly, and then reached for another chocolate. "Coffee?"

"Yes please."


	8. Eggnog

**Guest- Rainbow Snowcone hasn't been written yet.**

_Eggnog- Bunny/North_

Bunny fights long-range. He attacks with whirling boomerangs first, to deflect his enemy's attention and then uses the distraction to get in close where he can deliver powerful kicks and jabs with his hind legs. Second reserve is his explosive egg bombs- bombs that cloud an enemy's sight and block their nose, which causes hazardous breathing. If particularly pressed, he will retreat and use magic- great works of wizardry that make the earth itself split apart and rise up to defend the last Pooka. He fights fluidly, yet erratically, always jumping, moving, a constant blur of grey energy.

North knows this. After all the centuries they have fought, both against and with each other, North could recognise Bunny's style of fighting three miles off while blindfolded. It doesn't make it any easier to counter.

North prefers a different style. Life as a bandit taught him the best way to fight was as quickly as he could- go in, get the job done, get out. He delivers crushing blows designed to break an enemy's back, has two swords so his opponent is pressed to block both of them at the same time. North will fight dirty. He knows all the tricks- kick a man between the fork of his legs, break his wrist, fingers, et cetera. He also has magic in his reserve, and a intuitive ability that has lead him out of many fights the victor.

But even with all North's inguenity and brute force, he is hard pressed to match Bunny, who is simply many, many years older and has honed his art to a fine point. Even when they had first met, that awkward meeting of what appeared to North as a giant, uptight six foot rabbit in robes with an egg fascination and to Bunny a uncivilized, brash barbarian in a stinking fur coat, North had marked Bunny as a fighter he would rather have _on _his side rather than against him. (In fact, all of the Guardians but Sandy North knew would be a bad person to mess with from the first meeting. In his defense, he was unconscious when he met Sandy, and until the dreamweaver brought out the whips he had dismissed him as a kind and sweet fellow, but passive, and not the future powerhouse of their entire group.)

Yet it sure as Christmas is coming won't stop North from trying.

It's an old dance between them now but no less gripping for it. North and Bunny attack each other like mad things, and Bunny's teeth are bared and his eyes are hard and bright. North laughs in a way that isn't quite sane, and it brings to their mind that there is a reason North was always a bandit, not a hero. He thinks Bunny understands what Tooth is too hard to realise and Jack too naive- and well, none of them know what Sandy really sees. At least it's Bunny that understands when North looks at a young boy- perhaps fourteen- who would have looked a man to him before, and knows he would have cut him down like so much wheat in his path. The transition from Cossack bandit pillaging towns and gaining so much fearful admiration for himself he was known as the Bandit King to North the Guardian of Wonder and Childhood has not been easy and it leaves scars, Katherine-who-was-like-a-daughter-shaped scars.

It is not easy for Bunny to have a center of Hope. He has to work for it. Every day he reminds himself there is a reason he chose it, a reason he knew he needed to keep moving forward, having a hope that one day it would all be well. He lost his entire family, race, reason for survival, and for the longest time Bunnymund withdrew into his eggs and chocolate and refused to acknowledge the fact he was alone, all alone, until a brave bandit called North with ice in his eyes and warmth in his heart when he looked at a bright girl called Katherine came pounding at his door and rudely awoke him. Bunny doesn't say it very often, but he knows that without North's passionate, wild nature, rambunctious and boisterous and refusing to take impossibility as an answer, Bunny would still be there, rotting frantically away in a dead race's customs and habits, without the hope to survive.

But he chose hope. He chose becoming stronger, better. He chose learning how to fight with North instead of against him, and North chose wonder and protecting children instead of slaughtering them, and learning to see the wonder in peace instead of the joy of battle. It's not easy and they both have days, days where North is itching and angry and needs nothing more than a good, exhausting fight to wipe the bloodlust away, and Bunny is jerked back to the sudden realisation of the empty corridors of his Warren- tunnels he had first built in the hope of a family, a hope he still cherishes strong in his heart. A hope that paid off with the Guardians' smiles around him and a cheeky child called Jack Frost to scold like his own kit and North's eyes strong and safe like solid ice under the rushing sleigh.

But just because North is the only one who _gets it _there's no way that Bunny's just going to let him win. He spins underneath North's flashing arm and kicks upward, breaking North's arm at the elbow and finishes it off with a punch to the face that breaks his nose and sends him down. North stares up at him from the floor with blood running in his beard and laughs, blue eyes shining fierce and joyful.

"Good one, old friend!" he says, in a blocked tone, tilting his head up to ease the flow of blood and holding his arm stiffly.

"Here, mate," says Bunny, and crouches beside North and places his paw over the Cossack's nose and arm. He heals it with a burst of spring green magic, and North grins as if they haven't been trying to kick the shit out of each other all morning.

"I have made new batch of spicy eggnog," North began, and Bunny laughed.

"Well, let's break open the barrel before someone tells Sandy, yeah?"


	9. Rainbow Snowcone

**Here you go, Guest. I'm afraid it's only short.**

_Rainbow Snowcone- Tooth/Jack_

Jack would be the first to admit there was not much colour in winter.

For three centuries he had known barely more than the cool gleam of blue ice and white snow, the glitter of frosted windowpanes. It was beautiful, sure, no one could doubt that winter was a beautiful season- but barren. Trees were bare or crowned with jagged icicles, which hung like bladed talons the same colours as the frost curling over their trunks, and the grass that grew in that season was tough and dark green.

The first time that Jack came to the Tooth Palace, he thought he had stepped into another world entirely.

It was an explosion of colour, everywhere, the sky was tinted pale reds and blues with an approaching sunset, towering cliffs were hung with jade vines, and nestled like a pink jewel was the glittering Palace, an extravaganza of brilliant scarlet and gold tiles, graceful parapets and soaring towers. But more colourful yet was it's Queen- a rainbow hued fairy whose every movement send cascades of thirsty rainforest green and bruised purples shimmering over her feathers, and her gossamer wings, when still, refracted a thousand lights through the delicate membrane, like soap bubbles laced with intricate veins of gold.

Jack thought he would be blinded by the colour of it all, but even if he had been, he almost thought he would give up the accuracy of his snowball throws for the chance to savour the beauty of the Tooth Fairy. Jack had never been to a jungle, and Punjam Hy Loo's lazy heat was simultaneously relaxing and aggravating, but he couldn't deny it suited Tooth. She belonged to leafy tangled hearts of green and poisonously bright hued flowers, her domain was in blurring wings and Indian spice, nothing to do with Jack, a stiff jerking little corpse with dead blue eyes and cold white hair and a smile of dead teeth.

Tooth loved the colours of winter.

There was the glacial blue of melting ice, deep and ancient and shrouded with chips of white ice, there was the dark tricking sheen of black ice over roads that slipped unwary travellers, a danger in winter that called inexplicably to Tooth. There was the cold powdery snow, flushing cheeks bright with heat and eyes with laughter, and the comfort of sipping hot sweet chocolate beside roaring fires. There was the undeniable artistry of frost curling over the windows, trees, benches, anything it could reach, and groves of pure ice where one could walk through an orchard of hanging icicles, like long spines immortalised briefly in ice. There was the cold, biting and sharp on her feathers that thrilled her nerves and got her heart pumping, so unlike the languid heat she was used to. Tooth had never had snow days when she was young.

And then there was it's Shepard, young and bright and mischievous like the kiss of snowflakes on upturned cheeks but grave and serious like cracking glaciers if need be. Jack Frost, spirit of Fun, with his easy smile she loved for more than the pristine whiteness of his even teeth and his gentle heart that shone warmer than any breath of winter. He too was light on the air, not detached from gravity like Sandy, an alien in the world but part of it, living and breathing and flying in the air as one born to the Earth's skies. Only Bunny could understand the warm connection with the earth, but he stayed deep in his crumbling tunnels of caging dirt and didn't fly free, a recklessness born of true free spirit, like Jack and Tooth.

Finally, someone she could fly with, could keep up with her and dance in the air as it was meant to be danced in. It soothed a sudden ache that recalled the frozen bodies of the family she had never quite known, the Sisters of Flight who left Tooth all alone, a halfling in the world of grounded humans and one or two floating spirits.

And if it lead to kisses that tasted like icy peppermint and patterns of frost tracing her feathers like an intricate string of the pearliest white jewels Tooth would hardly disagree, especially if she could examine those perfect teeth for a little longer. He never ate badly, respecting her admiration for his teeth, and she loved him for it.

Her fairies were a part of her, and Tooth couldn't say that they didn't reflect her emotions. He never treated them badly, but brought toothbrushes to brush their tiny feathers and stroked their little wings and named each and every one, learned their likes and dislikes and brought them little presents. The fairies adored him, and though Tooth knew they were little more than constructs, extensions of herself, she had been alone for so long and Jack was so good with them it no longer seemed to matter that Tooth had to remember they were animate feathers and magic. Jack urged her to forget, and Tooth rediscovered her bond with her little flying daughters, and he brought them all closer together.

She cared for him like a mother would but there was nothing motherly in her eyes when she kissed him. He couldn't deny he enjoyed the fussing when he didn't brush his teeth or if he got a scrape or if he had to sleep outside in a play tunnel. It felt nice to have someone look after him and Tooth filled that role with ease, adapting it and suiting it to her own role as she pleased.

He had a standing invitation to the Tooth Palace whenever he wished, and Jack loved to go there to play with the busy little fairies, who would come to coo over his teeth and tangle in his hair, chittering brightly. Of all the Guardians, Tooth took to him the fastest, and was somehow the most relatable to him. She knew what it was like to be scared and to be tempted, and she knew what it was like to be light and constantly happy, always eager to see him, unlike gruff Bunny or busy North or sleepy Sandy. Tooth was a bundle of energy and feathers and he liked to tease her for it, but he also found it refreshing. It was nice not to have to slow down for someone or spend hours puzzling through intricate designs of sand. Tooth was the easiest to talk to, the happiest to talk to, and her warmth and brightness echoed in a glow in Jack's heart.

It could be argued they were opposites, too far removed to be good together but Tooth and Jack knew it was their differences that made them better. Jack adored the brilliant colours and ceaseless energy and hidden ferocity of the Tooth Fairy, and she cherished his happy youthfulness and restless cheer. When they were together, they talked endlessly for hours, about everything and anything, sitting so close they could share the different temperatures from their bodies- Tooth talked of India of her day, Jack of Burgess, and of winter, and of tropical jungles with heat so powerful it could melt ice within seconds, and all the wonders Tooth had seen compared to the natural wonders Jack pursued.

It was nice to finally have a home and someone to come home to, thought Jack, and while it in no way curbed his wandering ways he was secure in the knowledge that no matter how far he went or how long he was gone, Tooth would always welcome him back with a kiss and a hug and a demand to check his teeth. She was a constant warmth in his heart fending off the iciness of winter, and Jack spread his fun around the world with a smile on his face and the colours of the rainforest in his heart.


	10. Dustbunny

_Dustbunny- Sandy/Bunny_

Bunny doesn't have to sleep very often. He puts it down to the steady warmth of belief in his chest, giving him energy, and his home in the spring of life. He doesn't like the idea of leaving his mind unprotected, free to wander down memory lane, so he always does his best to sleep lightly and rarely. Bunny has seen too many years of watching humans as little more than Sandy and Pitch's playthings- with a dream, Sandy could change someone's entire life, and the past Easter has been clear on what nightmares can do.

Bunny may be gruff, but he's definitely not stupid enough to say this to the Sandman's face. But...he thinks Sandy knows his opinion, and can't help but feel a little guilty. Sleep and dreams are the Sandman's life, and he is one of Bunny's few friends, after all. He can't help that Bunny's mind wanders down dark paths.

Paths that remember when the Warren was a bustling haven of Pooka. Paths that remember the feeling of his kits in his arms and the sight of his mate's smile. Paths that remember a happy time before Pitch Black...and remember the times after. Wandering in a desolate wasteland of what had once been a thriving community, stumbling over bodies and soaking his fur with blood, shouting for anyone, could anyone hear him? Was anyone left? Kits, barely a few days old, snapped necks and wide eyes, mothers dead silently screaming in terror, frozen with fear. He'd tortured them before they had died, working them for every last morsel of fear until they had clawed at themselves, killed themselves to escape it.

He remembers falling to his knees, struck silent at the horror of it all, throwing up against a rock before realising it was not a rock, but a heaped pile of little twisted bodies, scattered with mangled remnants of fur- two Pooka, evidently crushed underfoot in the panic, jagged white bones spearing like accusing fingers towards the sky.

And Bunny was too late...the only one.

Every night in his dreams he wanders around the same, dead, empty Warren, echoingly, cavernously silent but for the occasional thump of a carrion bird's wings overhead and the buzzing of flies. Oh stars, the flies. Their sick, droning buzz fills his mind relentlessly, a constant, mocking backdrop to his thoughts. He despises Pitch Black, loathes him with every part of him there is to hate. The only times Bunny does dream sweet dreams, he dreams of making Pitch _hurt _and _bleed _for what he has done before he kills him.

But then Bunny is knocked out by dreamsand directly. He dreams of carrots, simple, crunchy carrots, that jump up and begin dancing with candy-canes as he walks past. Bunny wakes from the dream confused until he remembers that Sandy must have sent the dream to his mind specifically.

Bunny lets himself hope he can escape his unconscious torture.

After that Easter, he works harder than ever, leaving little signs of his presence everywhere he goes. He knows the other Guardians are helping too, and day by day, belief in him is restored. In fact, it's two weeks before he lays himself down to sleep again.

He closes his eyes and tenses, waiting for the nightmarish visions to flash across his eyes. Bunny falls asleep, and dreams of tunnelling for hours in a rich, golden world of fertile earth.

When he wakes up, he checks for dreamsand. There is none. Bunny is even more confused than before.

Sandy hasn't sent in dreamsand, but Bunny hasn't, for the first time since he can remember, had a nightmare.

He considers if it's because Pitch is sealed away being ripped apart by his own creations and asks Jack to check Burgess to see if the kids are still receiving bad dreams. He himself runs around the world, but fear still appears to be working fine still. There really is no explanation.

He doesn't dare to go to Sandy and ask him- the Sandman is exceptionally busy after his "death" restoring belief in himself, the Guardians, as well catching up on the duties he had missed. He barely turns up to Guardian meetings, and if he does, he falls into an exhausted sleep immediately. The Guardians are too kind to wake him up, since the bags underneath Sandy's eyes have turned dark purple and shadowed enough Jack jokes Pitch could travel through him.

This prompts sudden terror from Tooth, who spends the next hour fussing over Sandy and asking him repeatedly if he feels at all different...from, well, before. Bunny swallows. Watching Sandy get destroyed by the nightmares was hideous. Bunny's damnable sharp eyes caught the stunned, wide-eyed look on the gentle Sandman's face perfectly from his position in the sleigh, and now every time he looks at Sandy all he can see is that short, sharp shock, the arrow thumping home into his back like it belonged there, Pitch's cold, echoing laughter, the spreading rot of black sand.

He counters it by trying to remember the overwhelming relief and hope he felt when that recognizable golden figure manifested out of glowing golden sand. It doesn't always work, but at least he knows he's not the only one. He doesn't think he's seen Jack look Sandy in the eye since he returned.

He dismisses it as a one off, but it happens again, and again, and finally, Bunny knows something is definitely up. For the past three weeks, he's fallen asleep like clockwork at eight o clock and dreamed pleasantly all through the night until he wakes up at eight again, and throughout this process there is not a single glint of dreamsand. Perhaps some other spirit was responsible. Phantasos was the only one who came to mind, but Bunny had thought the third member of Sandy and Pitch's little dreamspinning trio had faded a long time ago, and besides, Phantasos worked in illusions.

It means that someone was sneaking into his Warren, knocking him out at the same time every night...and leaving no trace. This is a serious security breach and Bunny is jeopardizing the safety of his Warren if he ignores this.

He sighs. There's no other way. He's going to have to ask Sandy's advice on who is messing with his dreams.

Bunny doesn't like admitting he is having problems. He's become accustomed to working on his own after all this time, and though he knows he can rely on the Guardians, he doesn't want to look weak. He can't help but hesitate when he's finally faced with Sandy.

The dreamweaver looks shattered. His sand is dull and occasionally it falls right out of the air as Sandy loses control. His skin has turned yellow from weariness, and he barely floats, instead walking with slumped shoulders. Nevertheless, he manages a smile when Bunny awkwardly pulls him aside at the next meeting, and his eyes liven to the bright coppery gold Bunny knows. Bunny asks him if he knows any spirits that may be able to cause pleasant dreams other than himself, and Sandy, a sparkle of humour in his eye, manages to coherently sign, _am I not good enough, Bunny? _He looks down at his rumpled suit and straightens it self-consciously, actually appearing slightly worried despite his joking mien.

"You know that's not what I meant, mate," Bunny protests immediately. What? Of course not. Sandy is the only creature he would ever tolerate messing with his mind, because Bunny knows there's not a cruel bone in Sandy's body. If he even has bones. Not a cruel grain of sand.

Sheepishly, Bunny admits his problem, and Sandy does something very odd. He blinks, once, twice, and then the sand goes such a dark orange that Bunny starts forward to catch him, thinking he's about to faint or float apart. (A truly unnerving phenomenon that apparently doesn't hurt at all when Sandy dissolves into his own sand.) Sandy waves him off with excuses of exhaustion, and Bunny tells him to go rest- he can think about mischievous spirits later. He feels guilty for having stolen a little time Sandy could have used to rest.

That night, he decides to set a trap. He consults Jack Frost, who is ecstatic to think of pranking Bunny's mysterious stalker. Jack helps him set up a dream-catcher in a shaded alcove above Bunny's messy pile of blankets. That night, Bunny goes to sleep with anticipation roiling in his stomach. He has his boomerangs hidden under the pillow, ready to teach this wayward spirit a firm lesson.

He wakes up at exactly eight, after a nondescript night of carrots and warm skies. Bunny is instantly alert when he wakes up, reaching around cautiously for his boomerangs. He hears a thump- presumably the spirit, knowing he is caught, attempting to escape.

Bunny, grinning, tears away the blanket concealing the dreamcatcher from his sight, and stares.

A very sheepish Sandman is trussed up very securely in the net, silver ropes holding his little body like a fly caught on a spider's web. He looks even more tired than before, and suddenly, it clicks.

"You," says Bunny in disbelief, and Sandy nods awkwardly. It's the only motion he can do, he's tied up so severely. He wriggles a bit, giving Bunny a desperate look as the ropes cut into his soft skin. Bunny ignores the wordless plea and Sandy slumps, bracing himself from Bunny's indignation and disgust. "That's why you're so tired?" Bunny demands, "Not because you've been working hard?"

Sandy looks briefly offended. _Of course I have, _he signs, _I just stayed up to guide your dreams away from nightmares. _Well, that explains why he hasn't had any particularly good dreams, just rather boring plain ones. The Sandman blushes and bites his lip. _I didn't use dreamsand, _he adds quickly, _I...know you don't like what I do._

_"_It's not that," Bunny rushes to say, but there is no kinder way to put it. He just doesn't like it. Bunny winces at the hurt in Sandy's eyes and moves forward to untie the Sandman from the net. Sandy sighs silently in relief, rubbing his wrists, where Bunny is ashamed to note the ropes have cut to such a degree that small cuts have appeared in the Sandman's flesh. Dark gold liquid wells up and Sandy winces.

Bunny is torn between apologising and feeling angry that Sandy has been breaking and entering in order to force his powers on Bunny's defenseless mind- and true enough his intentions were benign enough but..."Why?" Bunny asks. Why risk Bunny's anger and his own health when he found out? Sandy must have known that he would. If Sandy is that concerned...why didn't he just ask Bunny if he could help?

Sandy is looking at the floor, an ashamed flush on his face. _I know you don't like me, _Sandy signs, _I know you always have but you tolerate me because I help protect the children from Pitch. _He determinedly avoids Bunny's eyes while the Pooka gapes. How on earth has Sandy got it this wrong?! Has he seriously thought for all these uncounted centuries that Bunny hated him? _But...I wanted to help you. And I know you don't like receiving help but..._he glances up at Bunny and his symbols decrease in size and brightness, as if he is whispering, _You have nightmares every night. I can feel them. It hurts me. And...you're my friend. You're the only one who can actually understand what I say._

It's true, Bunny is the only one who understands the language of light- except possibly Pitch, if the fearlings haven't scraped his brain free of it yet. "I don't hate you," says Bunny, his ears pressing flat against his skull. First Jack thinks he hates him...and now Sandy? Is Bunny really so bad at showing affection to his friends? He considers trying to show he actually likes the Guardians. Clearly, he hasn't done it well enough. "I like you. I don't like your dreams in my head, yes, but I think what you can do is incredible. You do more for us in one night than I could do in a year. And...you're the only one I would ever trust to send me dreams."

Sandy's eyes fill with tears, and before Bunny has time to blink, the Sandman slams into his chest, hugging him as tightly as he can. Awkwardly, Bunny pats his back, noting the rough texture of the sand robe beneath his paws. Sandy draws back slightly and looks at Bunny very seriously. He presses a shy kiss to the tip of Bunny's nose and the Pooka blinks, shocked into complete silence.

His brain screeches to a halt. _What. _What. _What the..._

_Please don't neglect your sleep again, _Sandy signs, his little arms still linked around Bunny's neck. His golden eyes look very seriously into Bunny's own. _It hurts me to see you suffering. I won't come back to guide your dreams...but, _his eyes search Bunny's own desperately. _The Dream Castle is always open to you. _He floats away. _If you want. _Sandy turns to leave, and Bunny thinks he should be calling after him, trying to understand...what has just happened.

_Did he just kiss me? _Bunny thinks numbly, watching the tiny figure of the Sandman disappear in a swirl of golden sand. He touches his paw to his nose, and then looks at the scattering of dreamsand left on his paw.

He has been enjoying these last few nights of peace. Perhaps he'll take Sandy up on his offer, after all.


	11. Black Belief

**Creeper!Jamie gives me life.**

_Black Belief- Jamie/Pitch_

It was time.

Jamie Bennett swallowed nervously, patting the floral cream bedcover back in place carefully. He smoothed it out so that it wouldn't be obvious he had tampered with it. His hands and forearms were smeared with white chalk and there was a sprig of rosemary caught in his shaggy brown hair. There were dark circles beneath his eyes and his skin was the wan and pale tone of someone who had spent too long hunched over a screen. He was almost unrecognisable from the cheerful, bright-eyed boy he had been a year earlier.

But his goal was so close, now, so close he could almost taste the victory. He'd been scouring the internet for answers to his problem, and had finally hit an amalgamation of a ritual he thought would work. Months had been spent collecting the materials he needed. Underneath the bed, Jamie had spent a very painful two hours contorting himself to draw archaic runes and scatter appropriate plants at the points of the makeshift pentagram. All of the forums he'd visited assured him of one thing- this would be able to trap and hold even the darkest spirit, the most wicked and sly shade, as long as Jamie didn't let him out.

And he had no intention of that.

Jamie was nine; it had been a year since he had first encountered Pitch Black. After the tumultuous events of Easter, Jamie had known his life would change forever, but there was no way he expected the Boogeyman's revenge.

The believers of Burgess were underneath the Guardians' personal protection, especially the Last Light and his sister, Jack had assured him. But they couldn't protect people who didn't believe in them...like Jamie's parents.

Jamie had watched mutely, unable to help, as uneasy dreams turned into howling, screaming nightmares every night. He watched as his father grew short-tempered and gruff, staying longer and longer at work, and his mother became snappish and sharp. He watched as the nightmares turned them against each other; his mother started smoking again, her fingers quivering and trembling for another cigarette, and they stopped trusting each other. Barely a word that wasn't shouted was exchanged in the Bennett household. They were afraid.

Pitch Black couldn't touch his dreams without the Guardians' retribution- but he _could _make Jamie's waking life a living nightmare.

Jack hadn't believed Jamie when he had told him that he was certain Pitch was poisoning his parents' dreams. He'd humored Jamie and supposedly checked on the entrance to Pitch's lair, only to find it still sealed. Whatever doubt had disappeared then, and Jack had just reassured him and awkwardly suggested that sometimes people just grew apart, but Jamie's parents would always love him. Jamie had gritted his teeth and borne the well-meant but patronising talk. He'd started making his plan that night.

At first, Jamie had researched for ways to protect his house from Pitch's nightmares, but swiftly realised that whenever his mother and father went outside, they would susceptible to Pitch's evil influence. Eventually, Jamie had come to the conclusion that if he couldn't keep Pitch _out..._he would have to keep him _in._

"Soon," he promised the space underneath the bed darkly, and shut the door to his parents' room with a click.

He'd find out if his plan worked tomorrow morning- a Saturday, perfectly enough time to get Pitch settled in his new prison, specifically created to cater to his most crippling weaknesses. He would only have to keep Pitch for a little while, right? Just long enough that he agreed to stop hurting Jamie's parents. He'd heard what happened to kids of divorced parents- and he knew his mother and father loved each other, it was all Pitch's fault, he deserved to pay for it.

* * *

Pitch Black slunk into the space underneath the Bennetts' bed, a triumphant smirk fully in place. He always took the time to personally weave the most horrific nightmares for these pair. He had nothing against them -they had such boring and plebeian fears- but watching the slow degradation of the brat's home life was worth all of it. He would make Jamie Bennett suffer for what he had done.

Pitch's body still remembered the scars his nightmares had left upon him. He bared his teeth as he materialised beneath the bed.

The chains snapped shut almost before he had the chance to realise what was happening.

Pitch screeched in fury, yanking with all of his might at the invisible bonds. The magic was thick and choking, smothering like a blanket of sand, and Pitch's cries dropped off to low, inhuman hisses. It hurt like Sanderson's blasted whips constricting around his body, the hems of his shadow robe sizzling as the powerful light magic worked against it.

It formed a bubble around his body, holding the Nightmare King ridiculously spread-eagled, his hands and feet bound at different points of the pentagram, and his head caged by the fifth.

_The Bennett boy must have set a trap for me, _he realised with dawning horror, _and I fell right into it._

Pitch uttered a terrible scream of sheer apoplectic rage, and swore revenge in thirteen different languages, his eyes burning incandescent gold.

_I will _kill _that wretched creature!_

* * *

Jamie approached the bed nervously. It was nine o'clock; his parents had already departed. His mother was downstairs, putting out the washing. His father had left for work- he had started taking Saturday overtime to get out of the house. The bedsheets were rumpled and twisted; they stank of sweat and fear. The room was dark and Jamie made certain to flick on the lights and draw the curtains before he dared get close to the bed. He didn't want to give Pitch any advantage. He remembered all too well the dark power the Boogeyman had wielded during that Easter.

Tentatively, Jamie flipped up the corner of the duvet and all the breath left him as if he had been knocked sideways.

Two bright yellow eyes stared back out of the gloom, piercing and shining bright like polished pennies. There was a muffled thump, as if heard through meters of swaddling cloth, that suggested Pitch was still fighting the pull of the chains. _It worked. _

Hardly daring to believe the stunning audacity of his plan had actually pulled it off, Jamie put his shoulder to the bed and shoved. Reluctantly, the heavy piece of furniture moved along the polished tracks he had made for it to allow himself the easiest transport of Pitch. Once he had caught him, of course. As soon as the bed was fully out of the way, Jamie stepped back to survey his work.

It was indeed Pitch, grey skinned and dark robed, trapped by glowing silver chains wrapping around his wrists, ankles and neck like strangler vines. His eyes glowered fiercely with utter hatred, and his thin lips were peeled back to reveal his crooked teeth in a soundless snarl. Every so often, he would twitch and pull against his cage, something feral and wild in his movements. He was snarling and spitting something Jamie couldn't hear, trapped as it was in the protective bubble of magic.

Jamie grinned. "Got you now," he told the Boogeyman, who clearly heard him, because his sneer redoubled and his efforts to twist away stilled. He had obviously recognised he wouldn't be able to escape through force alone. The contempt in Pitch's eyes was enough to peel plaster off of walls, but Jamie, riding the high of his triumph, was immune. "You're never going to hurt anyone again, do you hear?" he asked Pitch, quiet and low, but Pitch only spat at him.

The magical shield vaporized the saliva before it could get anywhere near Jamie, but Pitch had made his statement.

Coolly, Jamie stood up. "Okay then," he said, determinedly, "Guess I'll have to wait for you to change your mind." He glanced around the room, a smirk tugging at his lips. "You're going to _love _your new room."

The death threats started as soon as Jamie pulled the lank and protesting form of the Boogeyman out of the protective pentagram. Frankly, they were typical, and Jamie ignored them with an eye-roll. He bundled Pitch tightly in the chains, stuffed one of his father's ties in Pitch's mouth as a makeshift gag- which nearly earned him a few less fingers if he hadn't pulled his hand away from Pitch's sharp teeth in time- and manhandled him out of the window. He landed with a crash in their front garden, and Jamie waited breathlessly for his mother to demand what the awful noise was.

But Mrs Bennett didn't believe in the Boogeyman, and had no idea of his presence as around the back of the house, she pegged up the washing, too tired to question Jamie when he asked to borrow the wheelbarrow for help with a project over at a friend's.

Jamie's arms protested viciously as he hauled the Boogeyman out of the flowerbed he had landed in face-first (after sniggering and firmly committing the image to memory, of course) and pushed him bodily into the wheelbarrow. Pitch's legs were so long Jamie had to bend him almost double -and Christ, _rubber _didn't hold a candle to Pitch's flexibility- to stop them trailing over the edge. Throughout it all, Pitch glared at him as if he was trying to burn a hole through Jamie with his eyes. The Nightmare King looked so stunned by the blatant disrespect he was shocked into relative stillness.

Jamie lobbed a garden trowel into the wheelbarrow as well- for cover, he could say he was going to the allotments nearby and gardening there- and headed out. It was strange walking through the town in broad daylight with Pitch Black chained up in a wheelbarrow- he constantly expected to run into someone who would see what he was doing and order him to stop. He felt chilled and nervous, sweat beading on the back of his neck, and he knew by the vicious satisfaction in Pitch's eyes that Pitch was only stirring his fear as best as he could from within the magic dampening chains.

He could tell the sunlight was affecting Pitch. The Boogeyman was cringing away from it, and his shadow robe was already flickering at the edges. He looked washed out and pale in the strong beams of the hot sun, and Jamie grinned. Jack definitely hadn't been lying, when Jamie had discreetly questioned him, and he'd told Jamie Pitch's biggest weakness was sunlight. He must not have been as recovered as he was during Easter, Jamie remembered watching Pitch stand in the sunlight then- whilst not comfortable, clearly not affected to the degree he was now.

Despite Jamie expecting to get stopped by every person they passed, he made it out of the town and down the bumpier side tracks towards the woods without incident. His heart was hammering and his palms were slick, making gripping the handles of the wheelbarrow awkward. He paused and set the wheelbarrow down for a moment, wiping his hands on his trousers and breathing a sigh of relief. The town was out of sight. The worst of it was over.

An optimistic relief welled up inside of him. All he had to do now was get Pitch to the abandoned shack he had found, tie him up, make sure the headlights and lamps he had borrowed, bought and bribed from friends and the internet were all on and plugged into the solar charger, and he would have a secure place to put Pitch. The worst was over, he reassured himself. It was risky, very risky, but no one went near the abandoned shack, not anymore. Pitch would be safe there.

He looked down at the seething shade huddled at the bottom of the wheelbarrow. Jamie had made obnoxiously certain to park the wheelbarrow in a spot of burning sun. Pitch looked ill, sweating in his dark robe, but not enough to avoid sending Jamie a dark stare that promised dire retribution. Jamie shivered slightly, and Pitch smirked coldly around the gag.

What if Pitch did get free? He would kill Jamie. And Sophie, and probably their parents. _I'll just have to make sure he never gets free, _Jamie told himself. _It can't be that hard. Look at him._

Indeed, bound in the bright chains, glittering and sparkling in the sun, and cringing away from the sunlight, Pitch looked less like a malingering spirit of fear and more a pathetic wight. "How does it feel?" he asked conversationally, and Pitch started up with a muffled range of curses that were thoroughly incomprehensible to Jamie. The boy grinned. _Payback for all those nightmares, _he thought, and took up the handles of the wheelbarrow again.

It took them another two rests and an hour to reach the shack. It was slow going in the undergrowth of the woods, full of hazards that Jamie hadn't noticed before, when he was just walking to prepare Pitch's cell. Roots became dangers threatening to tip the wheelbarrow entirely, sharp rocks potential weapons Pitch could use to break his chains- although Jamie knew they couldn't be broken unless the caster (himself) wished them to. And while Pitch was in no way heavy compared to what humans were supposed to be, Jamie was nine, and hadn't done a great amount of exercise for months. By the end of the walk, his arms were screaming and he was panting heavily.

When they reached their destination, he had to slump over and gasp for breath for a little while before he could muster the strength to tackle the next problem; getting Pitch up the stairs.

The shack was two floors high, but the ground floors were dark and damp, mildewed and rotten through. A surprisingly sound staircase let up to the two rooms upstairs, one of which was missing half of one of it's walls, and the other, just perfect for keeping a captured Boogeyman. Frequent gaps in the crumbling wall allowed beams of sunlight to pour into the room and light up the center, where the sturdy metal frame of an old bed of Monty's Jamie had collected from the scrapyard and reassembled in the room waited. He'd made shutters for when it got dark, to keep the shadows out, and found plenty of strong lamps to light the place up when the room was too dim. Of course, he'd have to go in and switch them on every night by hand.

From the outside, the shack looked decrepit and dangerous. It was the perfect place to keep him.

Unceremoniously, Jamie tipped Pitch out of the wheelbarrow and grabbed hold of the Nightmare King's ankles. Pitch thrashed like a hooked fish, diverting half of his strength into holding him still as he dragged him laboriously towards the stair case. This was going to be a long fight.

After much pushing, shoving, grunting and cursing, Jamie had finally bullied every inch of Pitch's ridiculously long frame up the stairs and into the room. Immediately he'd secured the chains to the bed, forcing Pitch's arms above his head and his legs slightly spread. The still-gagged Nightmare King cursed him viciously, bucking and twisting like a wild animal. Jamie stepped back to admire his work. Pitch looked perfectly helpless.

"Listen," said Jamie, cutting through Pitch's muffled cursing. "You're here because you tried to get at me through my family. And I don't like that. So I'm going to keep you here...until- until you promise not to do it again. And _mean it," _he added, because even to his ears the statement sounded weak and childish. Pitch gave him an unimpressed glare that made a flush rise to Jamie's cheeks. Managing to spit out the gag, a blistering hurricane of taunts, threats and curses poured from his lips like a flood overwhelming a dam.

"I'll keep you here," he threatened again, "I'll keep you here until you've learned your lesson, you hear?"

Pitch spat at him.

* * *

**Six years later**

* * *

Jamie took the stairs two at a time, his school bag bumping against his back. His feet moved with the instinctual knowledge born of endless practice to avoid the creaky steps, the damp, rotted ones that threatened to give way. His school trousers were splashed with mud at the hems and there was a grass stain on his white shirt. He wore a tie loosely around his neck, black banded with green and a crest dotting between each stripe- typical shield emblem split into four, capital B on top left, next to it an oak tree, directly below that H, and the last a winged sandal, _Burgess High School. _His shoes were scuffed trainers, one lace half-untied and sole peeling off at one edge. The rucksack was dark green, with grey straps, functional, a camper's bag. It was slightly unzipped.

Taller now, not any longer the skinny, doe-eyed nine year old he had been. Skin tanned from hours in the sun and teenage body still lanky and struggling to catch up with itself, coltish long legs and a sturdy arm for batting. Brown hair cropped shorter, enough to leave a flop of fringe over his eyes but too short to have to fuss with. His eyes, at least, were the same colour, though rather the open and warm trusting brown they had been before, now Jamie's eyes took the dark, burnished warmth of polished oak, rich with secret.

The shack was a constant, trapped in time, the same weary grey walls and groaning shutters, cracked windows like soulless eyes and the sigh of leaves rustling disapprovingly outside. It was the height of summer and a low, dense heat hugged the ground, moisture curling in the cracks of the old walls and making them shift restlessly. The dilapidated place was a wreck, shingles slid off the roof in high winds, and Jamie remembered more than a few terrible thunderstorms listening to the crack of thunder and the jagged flash of lightning in it's shelter. The threadbare carpet softened his steps as he padded, more slowly now, to the closed door at the closest end to the stairway. The hallway seemed to extend further and then crumble away, and shafts of dusty summer sunlight illuminated warm patches on the greyish carpet stained with the passage of innumerable years of animals.

Jamie opened the door carefully, slipped inside, without greeting the room's sole occupant. He had a few hours of daylight to burn before he had to switch on the lamps, and some homework to do anyway. Six years had taught him to value the privacy and peace the shack afforded him, and the occupant of the room was a good enough companion, depending on his mood.

He eyed the lean form on the bed surreptitiously, not allowing any sign of his observation to become obvious. He'd become a master at this, this game of theirs.

He skimmed over the perfect relaxation of Pitch's body, his head stretched back against the thin pillow, dark hair laying soft against the cover. His eyes were closed, but Jamie knew better to think that Pitch didn't know he was there. His silvery chains, a constant for six years so much that Jamie struggled to remember him without them, attached to each post of the steel bedframe he was tied to, leaving him spread across the bed with little room to move around. Continued exposure to sunlight worn away his shadow robe until at last, Jamie had stolen a pair of boxers to preserve Pitch's modesty. Over time, even the tattered remnants of the robe had faded away, leaving him clad only in that which Jamie gave him. He was gagged with a soft dark cloth- Jamie dared not risk leaving him free to shout, especially after the disastrous winter a few years ago Pitch had screamed until his voice was hoarse in the hopes Jack might hear him as he swept over his favourite town. He was thinner than he had been before, and the defined edges of his bones and muscle showed sharply through his ashen skin, bleached pallid.

So it seemed Pitch was in a mood to be pleasant today, thought Jamie, with a brief smile. He approached the bed, still not speaking, and Pitch's eyes opened and he turned to look at Jamie silently.

There was a vast emptiness in Pitch's eyes, remote and removed. He looked glazed and barely there, burying himself in some far away part of memory where he walked dusty halls and greeted old powers with a snap of his fingertips. They were the same haunting mixture of lazy gold and vibrant silver, an eclipse captured and preserved in one creature's body, and the sharp angles of his face and sleek monochrome of his colouration seemed only to frame his eyes, draw attention to them as if to detract from the imminent danger of his teeth, hidden beneath thin dark lips.

Jamie wasn't surprised by Pitch's unresponsiveness, he often got like this after Jamie ignored him for a few days. He'd learned the most effective way to deal with Pitch's rebelliousness and need to retaliate was to simply pretend he didn't exist. A week or two when the only contact he ever got with the outside world looked straight through him was enough to wear away at Pitch until at last he would retreat inside himself, drawing protective cloaks of past over his eyes as if it could shield him from the dizzying emptiness he felt. He would rail at first, scream in fury at Jamie, and when he had exhausted himself, glower, buck and twist when Jamie dared near him, hiss beneath his gag. Then he would begin to still, and soon would stop reacting entirely to Jamie's entrance and exit. By that point, Jamie usually took pity on him.

"Hello Pitch," he said, and reached down to untie Pitch's gag. He made certain to brush his fingers lightly against Pitch's temples- his skin felt feverishly warm, the bones of his skull delicate yet unbreakable beneath it- and through his dark hair, shadow-soft against Jamie's fingers and whisper-fine. He knew a little touch helped wake Pitch up and ground him to the present.

Pitch's eyes cleared slightly, and the dreadful stillness quickened to the bright quicksilver gold Jamie preferred, shifting even within the light of the room. "Hello, Jamie," he murmured, and his voice was hoarse, cracked, direly in need of water.

Jamie smiled at him and looped the gag over a bedpost. He loosened the chains around the headboard, giving Pitch enough length to sit up, which the shade did cautiously, curling his legs close to him like a cat, crossing his ankles and resting his hands in his lap. He looked starkly fitting there, cool grey against the steel bedframe, the pile of blankets, dappled sunlight shining warmly over smooth grey skin, high shoulders taut, head tilted away, long neck arched, glancing downward. He was a symphony of straight lines and sharp overlapping edges, an impossible lithe dark creature fitted together and captured, trapped, by softly glittering silver chains draping over his body like tender ropes. The light caught in his eyes in a dizzying fractal of black and gold.

Jamie's fingers itched to reach into his pocket and snap a photo on his phone, so he did. Pitch blushed, a slight frown furrowing his features, thin lips pulling down as he head the unmistakeable click of the shutter, and Jamie couldn't resist taking another picture to immortalise the soft violet of his blush, belladonna against his cheeks, over his neck, darker across his chest, the bruised purple of crushed grapes. Fitting that a colour that would represent pain on anyone else was discordantly beautiful on Pitch.

His photo gallery on his phone was almost entirely taken up with pictures of Pitch, pictures that looked blank to anyone else. He didn't know when his fascination with capturing Pitch's movements had started morphing from the bitter disgust he had felt before, but it was an endless marvel to Jamie, studying the angles of Pitch's face, the lines of his jaw and throat, his shoulders, the impossible length of his legs and his feet! Thin, long, with flexible digits that bore the appearance of human toes but were elongated, like fingers. Everything about Pitch was angular down to the slightly pointed tips of his ears.

"Shove up," he said lightly, and obligingly Pitch moved to the side as Jamie slumped onto the bed next to him. It was still warm from Pitch's body heat, and Jamie kicked off his trainers to push his socked feet against Pitch's warm legs. Pitch felt like a heater, he was always pleasantly warm.

He rifled around in his bag and pulled out his water bottle and a canteen cookie. He unscrewed the bottle and lifted it to Pitch's lips gently- he'd done this enough times to not accidentally choke Pitch with going too fast, but a small droplet of water spilled from Pitch's lips and curved down between his collarbones. Then he broke the cookie into halves and said cheerfully, "Hungry?"

Pitch didn't need to eat human food and didn't seem to experience any of the human maladies that would have struck Jamie if he had been trapped in one position for days on end, without movement. He didn't need exercise, feeding, relieving himself or even bathing, as he only seemed to sweat when the sunlight caused him particular discomfort. The few times Jamie had been required to dress wounds caused by Pitch yanking on the chains until he rubbed his wrists raw had been awkward, but not nearly as awkward as the one and only time Jamie had given up and washed Pitch's hair by hand when he was thirteen. It had been awful.

Pitch eyed the cookie consideringly, and Jamie grinned. "It's tasty," he added, and Pitch rolled his eyes with a barely audible huff. He leaned forward and Jamie fed him the cookie carefully, since Pitch's chains weren't long enough that he could reach up to his mouth. Once he was done, he leaned against Pitch casually and pulled out his history book.

"Know anything about..." he flicked through the book and found the topic, "impact of the second world war?"

"The second world war..." Pitch hummed. "Yes, I was there. Dreadful time- though ridiculous, calling it the second world war. There were many other wars just as long and gruelling for your people. Everyone was afraid, too much fear, almost. There were plenty in that time who were already living a nightmare without my aid...but I was very strong."

Jamie settled against Pitch, resting against his shoulder and tracing idle patterns over Pitch's stomach, allowing the low, mellifluous tones of the Boogeyman's voice lull him into a trance as he took brief notes in the margins of his history book. Pitch talked for hours, the low reverberation of his voice soothing Jamie into staring blankly at the white page of his history notebook, more interested in the heated velvet over whipcord feel of Pitch's skin under his fingertips, memorising the bumps of his ribs and narrow line of his hips, stopping before the waistband of the boxers.

The measured evenness of Pitch's breathing was undisturbed, but he shifted under Jamie's exploratory touch, clearly unused to it. Jamie smirked slightly at the flush on Pitch's cheeks as Jamie openly marvelled over his inhuman lines of his form. Pitch was no human, it was obvious in everything he did, from his slow, lazy blink to the subtle grace in his movements, but the power Jamie had over him was heady and intoxicating, like a shot right in his veins. He traced the cuffs over Pitch's wrists and remembered that day six years ago with a brief smile.

He leaned up to press a shy kiss against Pitch's cheekbone, such a tender act strangely bizarre administered to a dark creature of nightmares and fear, even with his sun warmed skin and eyes glinting gold. Pitch jerked, his eyes going wide, and Jamie laughed. He took a picture on his phone of Pitch's surprise, his flushed face, the bewilderment in his eyes.

He wouldn't ever let go of Pitch, Jamie thought. Besides, Pitch liked it here, and what could he possibly desire that Jamie couldn't give him? The Guardians hadn't even bothered to look for Pitch once in all the six years since Jamie had first captured him. He'd been chained to a bed in an abandoned shack nearby Jack's lake for six years. _Six years. _

_No one wants you but me, _he thought, mapping the back of Pitch's hands with his fingers. _But that's okay. I promised I'd keep you until you learned your lesson._


	12. Christmas Cookie

Christmas Cookie- North/ Tooth

The Workshop had grown significantly since Tooth saw it last. When she last visited, it was nothing more than a carpenter's bench, a tower from the Lunar Lamadary, and a mile of tents in every direction, each housing a giant yeti. Now...she whistled in surprise, her tiny selves around her chirping their agreement.

A tall, timber building had replaced the shabby foundations, warm lights set in every window, wrapping around the tower and building upwards. A large skylight had been put in to face the dim eye of the Moon far distant. Around the Workshop, a warm halo of yellow light shone onto the snow, a haven of welcoming and peace. Even the cliff it rested on had been hollowed out and timbered windows peered out of cracks in the ice like bright yellow eyes.

It was bitterly cold, and Tooth shivered. The chill cut straight through her tropical feathers. Hopefully North would have the fire stoked.

She arrowed towards the skylight, easily popping open the window and darting inside. The warmth greeted her like a hug, and her fairies sighed in relief.

Inside the workshop, she saw a globe dominating the room. It glowed softly with yellow light, and she frowned at it, confused. What on earth was that for? Before the globe, a dais with a desk piled high with papers overlooked it, and further back, a roaring hearth. She grinned gratefully and flew to it, fanning her wings out to dry them. She'd run into a minor shower as she'd crossed over India. A yeti ambled out of a doorway, took notice of her, his bushy eyebrows rising in surprise. Without a word, he hurried off, hopefully to find North.

Evidently so, considering the man himself appeared a moment later with his customary loudness, swaggering in and greeting her boisterously. "Toothy! You came!"

"Of course I did, North," the fairy queen said irritably. "You were most insistent. Thirty-eight letters?"

"Ah," North ducked his head, blushing. He muttered something incomprehensible about- wasn't sure if they'd get through. "You like? Is good, no?" He gestured around himself at the workshop, his blue eyes brightening with wonder. "Took many time!"

"Very long, North," Tooth corrected absently. She smoothed down her crest. "You finished, I suppose?"

"Nyet!" North laughed, before his eyes calmed and he said, more gravely, "Am not saying 'finished!' till everything is done, in place."

Tooth smiled. "Looks pretty done to me, North," she shrugged, but let him have his way, and was led around the Workshop in an enthusiastic tour, involving lots of Russian proclamations and exaggerating.

He showed her rooms, decorated in fine hangings of lustrous thread and containing rich furniture from all ends of the world. He showed her baths in the old Roman style, warm heated tile and steam curling over marble columns. He showed her the bustling hive of the kitchens, gleaming work surfaces and the rich, luxurious smell of cooking food. He showed carpets from India, bone ornaments of carven elephants worked in delicate ivory, Russian folkloric tales worked in wood and ice and tapestry.

There were rooms for every one of their friends, a wide, deep room that was shaped like a sloping bowl, half of the wall open and paned in enchanted glass, the floor covered in thick layers of coloured sand and frequent scattered pillows, the walls painted dark, deep blue, like the sky at night, very obviously for their new and mysterious friend, the Sandman. There was one for Bunnymund, on the ground floor, super-heated and connected to the ground itself, magelight and witchfire flickering in the twisting tunnels that reminded her of some deep burrow. There were light, airy rooms for Katherine and Nightlight, connected by means of passageways- secret and hidden- which could be activated by plucking certain books from the shelves. There was a personal room for each child from Santoff Claussen, their names carved over the doors and presents hidden inside.

There was even a bower for Tooth herself, not far from the master's room, a silken nest of carefully carven marble lined with the plushest and richest of fabrics, thousands of tiny perches for however many fairies she could bring, a small artificial spring and the soft gurgle of water running over stone, fruit trees and the air bespelled to a constant, warm humidity just right for the dweller of a rainforest.

She felt as if her face was permanently fixed in an exclamation of wonder- North's handiwork was everywhere- from the comfortable, sleepy darkness of Sandman's room (of course, thought Tooth, feeling silly, the Sandman would enjoy darkness over light) to Katherine's room of twisted trees baring scrolls of fresh paper perfect for writing, the freshness and vibrancy of the living plants within Bunnymund's warren-like chambers. It was a masterwork of building, inventiveness and magic, all worked together to make the best, the biggest, the most comfortable for all his friends. North had taken into account and planned for things that Tooth hadn't even considered.

The Workshop was perfect. Tooth could think of nothing more to add to it, and as they stopped, once more in the Globe Room, the function of which North had just finished breathlessly explaining, she couldn't help but inquire what more he could possibly add.

North went red. "Is not something I can add." He said, his rough voice almost shy, if one could refer to Nicholas St North as ever being shy. "Is something that must come of own accord."

His blushing attitude gave her a clue, and Tooth covered her mouth with her hand, her glossy pink eyes, like Arabian silk, North thought, sparkled with amusement. "A mate, North?"

"Ah-" said North, but the brightness of his cheeks and the way he was avoiding her eyes, uncharacteristically fidgety, like a nervous schoolboy, answered for him.

"Oh!" Tooth clapped her hands with glee. This was exciting! "Who is it?" she demanded immediately, and tried to think of spirits North may like. "Mother Nature?" North had certainly seemed to admire her, with his bright wonder in his eyes.

North winced. "Is not Mother Nature! I barely know her!"

Tooth tried to think of someone else that North knew adequately. "Sandman?" she tried, and North shook his head rapidly.

"Am thinking is not best to piss off someone who is strong enough to hold Sandman down, yes?"

"What?" said Tooth, confused. "...who?" She struggled to think of anyone- but no, Sandman was always alone. "He doesn't have anyone, does he?"

"No man is that happy when he is not having sex," said North, raising a finger, and Tooth made a disgusted face. "Nor that eager not to sit. Lover is big man, strong man." He looked dubious. "Is very mysterious friend, Sandman. Am thinking I am preferring to remain whole, yes?"

"That's- actually quite disturbing," said Tooth, though really, she supposed she ought have expected it. There was no denying there was something inherently creepy in the constantly cheerful, whip-wielding, sarcastic, silent and sassy Dreamweaver.

"So- Bunny?" she suggested, and North's face went milk-white with horror.

"NYET!"

"Aww, how come?" teased Tooth, and North spluttered indignantly.

"Is not even human! Is rabbit! Is boring person! Is no person for Nicholas St North!" He calmed himself forcibly. "Toothy- am not loving men. Am interested in women, da?" He looked slightly desperate.

North's face made her laugh. She stifled her giggles quickly, and racked her brain for anyone else. Anyone she suggested was shot down with increasing annoyance, until finally North stopped her by seizing her hands.

"Is not any of those, Toothy," he said, intently, "Is someone more beautiful, is someone fierce and strong and true, is someone who knows what is is to be alone without ever having lost love of people, is someone who I am loving with all my heart, and I am very much hoping she is agreeing to stay with me, for a little while, in Workshop I have built for her."

"She must be someone very special," whispered Tooth, glancing away at chairs specifically designed to fit wings. "To earn your love."

"She is Queen," said North simply. He paused. "I love her very much, I am hoping she will hurry up and realise it. Am fearing being turned away too much..."

Tooth kissed his cheek. "I hope so too, North," she said, and fluttered into a hover. "Well, got to go. Teeth to collect."

North's shoulders slumped, slightly, but he mustered a smile. "Goodbye, Toothy! Come soon. Doors of Workshop always open to you."

* * *

It took several hundred centuries and one mischievous frost spirit getting very exasperated before Tooth realised who North had actually meant.

When she found out, she set her fairies on him, slapped him twice, screamed at him for a straight hour- "how, exactly, was I supposed to guess from that?!" then seized him by the beard for a kiss.

As it turned out, she ended up very rarely using her own room at the Workshop after that.


	13. Daydream

_Daydream- Sandy/Jamie_

Ever since Pitch Black's defeat, Sandy has always taken great care to make certain only the sweetest, kindest, gentlest dreams go to the beloved Bennett children. He knows that favoritism is not strictly allowed, but all of them pay special attention to the Last Light and his sister, so he is hardly the only one at fault.

Contrary to popular belief, dreams don't come from Sandy. He imagines bare facts for them, settings, a character, the unravelling beginning of a plot. A dream is a collaboration between dreamweaver and sleeper, he provides the sketch and they the colours in all of their personalised glory, endless interpretations and scenes and fantasy played out with the same single dream- _swimming on a sunny day, _in one child's mind is splashing and playing with her big brother, sun warm on her skin, another, drifting on a lilo far out to sea, peaceful and sleepy, mermaids visions of beauty twisting and coiling in the welcoming depths below. Sometimes, he has to work harder for some children than others, but the inventive ones, the dreamers, are what keeps the shine in his golden eyes and the smile on his face.

He spins glorious dreams for Jamie, dreams of adventure and dragons and battles, heroes and knights and sailing the stars. Jamie's mind is a wonderland of inventiveness, and it's a genuine pleasure to work dreams with him- he is always ready to spring in a new direction, keep the dream fast-paced and alive, vibrant with texture and colour. Jamie's dreams are like explosions of starbursts behind his eyes, and Sandy often finds himself grinning like a fool and lingering over Burgess just to feel the supernova of Jamie's belief in him crescendo like the most supernatural and sweet of all orchestra pieces. They always believe stronger at night, when his presence works with them directly, and he cannot fault their belief from fading when the harsh light of dawn comes- but not Jamie, never Jamie. His belief is constant, running at a fever-pace bright and burning in their hearts.

Sandy is grateful to him. Jamie's dreams, his belief, kept Sandy alive, a small glimmer of hope, a speck of gold in an abyss of choking black, and it was Jamie's extended hand and Jamie's warm brown eyes that welcomed him back into the world. He certainly feels a special fondness, more so than he has felt for any other child, for Jamie Bennett. He spends what free time he has deeply asleep, wandering new dreams, sketching out new adventures for Jamie to experience, always with that gap-toothed smile and exclamations of joy- he never doubts who is responsible for such vivid, such intense and bountiful dreams, dreams that make him want to sleep forever only to experience them again and again.

It's addictive, Sandy knows, and he knows he should be careful how sweetly he lets Jamie dream, for fear that the boy will lose touch with reality, or want to- but he can't bring himself to stop, and Jamie's belief and childish innocence protects him almost as much as it endangers him.

He is perfectly willing to spin Jamie his adventurous dreams, knowing Jamie longs for the thrill of his childhood battle again and again- an enemy to fight, a damsel to rescue, a treasure to discover. Jamie hacks his way through wild Indian jungles to recover trapped blond beauties (of varying sex, depending on Jamie's mood), journeys into secret temples to rescue golden treasure troves, dives his way to the bottom of the sea to speak with silent golden mermaids. Sandy tries to ignore the recurring theme, always something gold, something beautiful, something silent and strong and gentle.

He doesn't mind when Jamie adds a companion to his dream in some form or another every time, even if it's nothing more than a distant figure, an etching on the wall as he explores ruined cities- cities that would actually exist before his waking eyes were he ever blessed to roam the stars- and he ignores how the companion never speaks but smiles with the smile of falling night, promising wistful trapped dreams flickering lurid under closed eyes, to be put aside upon waking- but never forgotten.

He doesn't even mind when Jamie grows into a teenager, and his dreams begin to often take a turn for the adventurous in a different way, and sometimes the princes he rescues are wearing far less clothes- diaphanous golden robes that hang loose around soft forms- and are very grateful indeed to their savior. Sandy weaves dreams for all ages and doesn't bother to discriminate. He guides Jamie instead, providing just a hint more reality, heightening sensation. There is always the adventure beforehand, anyway, and Sandy finds them more fun then a teenage boy's confused and interested fantasies.

He doesn't mind when he realises that Jamie hasn't dreamed of princesses for a long while, and makes his princes just as beautiful and handsome as he ever did the women. He tries his best to ignore the signs that get steadily more obvious as time goes on- surely, Sandy thinks desperately, dreaming of waking up someone soft and gold and gentle with kisses is normal enough. Most people that age dream of relationships, of lovers that wait for them. (They don't dream of lovers that barely reach mid-thigh and are always soft, plump, and there is a distinct recurring theme of gold that Sandy really does try to ignore.)

He tells himself, alone and restless and daring to wonder, to dream, that he has spent too long breathing in his own sand. _You grant wishes, not push them, _he tells himself sternly, and wonders if perhaps his affection for Jamie is bleeding through into the dreams he sends. He thinks he is getting too attached. He ought to back away, before it gets out of hand. He remembers occasions in the past where the Sandman's affection has turned his beloved dreamers into muttering, unreliable, unstable people, locked away and shut up, taking thousands of pills a day because the Sandman loved them too much to let them go. He thinks he should probably back away personally from accompanying Jamie into every dream. He thinks maybe that it's not Jamie that's addicted to his dreams so much as Sandy is.

He tries, one night, to stay away. He meets Pitch Black sneering at him from a rooftop. Pitch threatens to send Jamie a nightmare. There is cold satisfaction in Pitch's eyes- later, he will question what Pitch read in his fears- when he immediately rushes to Jamie's side, and soothes the confusion of his lateness with a vivid dream of the Celestial City in all it's glory. He doesn't want to think of what could be so obvious his infamously love-blind counterpart reads it with ease. Sandy has gotten very good at ignoring things.

But try as he might, he cannot ignore this.

Jamie dreams of a lover coming to him in the darkness. The sky is red-orange-gold, ribboned with streamers of yellow. His lover is short, is soft, is golden and round and gentle, with little hands and feet and a body that most would think to hug, not kiss, not worship with trembling hands as if he were some tender god. He dreams of wild, spiked hair against white pillows and sweet, sleepy golden eyes that burn bright with remembered fierceness. He dreams of lazy smiles quirking innocent lips, he dreams of wide, sweeping arcs of sand and nestled within a lover fallen from the very inky depths of the skies themselves. He dreams of silence, of sleepy love that burns warm and powerful- and how could he have ever imagined that Jamie would not know?

Jamie dreams of Sandy, and he slips into his dream with wide eyes, and Jamie knows his presence surely, in the way brown eyes brighten and a smile curves his lips.

"Finally," says Jamie, and Sandy feels his relief like a rolling tide over a beach. Jamie dreams of Sandy, but Sandy doesn't have to have his counterpart's gifts to know that Jamie fears the illusion nature of dreams- the weblike protection that conceals Sandy from his dreamers. Jamie fears that it is all _just _a dream- that Sandy himself is indifferent to him, to his love.

They have broken it, now.

Sandy sits on the wide windowsill and asks, _"Why me?" _Jamie dreams of kissing him and Sandy's cheeks flush orange.

"You're beautiful," is all Jamie says, but his silence says so much more, and Sandy has to look away, because the truth of what he has done is too awful for him to consider. He has warped Jamie, he thinks despairingly, he has-

Sandy spins dreams, but he does not control them. So when Jamie appears in his arms and kisses his doubts away Sandy does nothing, but lets Jamie lead him where he will. He ends up the next morning waking in Jamie's arms, and the astonishment and wonder in the teen's eyes when he wakes in his ordinary, boring college room to find the Sandman cuddled nervously into his side, not quite certain of his welcome in the waking world- it is all very well to dream, Sandy knows, but he isn't sure if Jamie still wants his dreams while he is awake.

"You're here!" Jamie gasps.

Sandy nods. He cannot speak outside a dream, but Jamie doesn't seem to mind. He grabs Sandy and holds him close, buries his face in his golden hair desperately and Sandy thinks he is crying, shaking his relief and soft, murmured _'thankyous'. _Sandy sits in his lap and lets Jamie hug him, lets Jamie press his face into his shoulder to hide his glad tears as he cautiously reaches out to twine his fingers into Jamie's hair. It has been a long time since Sandy has touched anyone outside a dream.

Jamie pulls back and laughs as if he can't quite believe it. Sandy grins at him and thinks- _well, he is the Last Light, it is his job to believe where anyone else wouldn't. _His hand is large next to Sandy's face, and Sandy turns into it, pressing his golden cheek against Jamie's skin.

"I think I love you," Jamie blurts, and Sandy smiles at him with the immovable patience of dreams.

Jamie Bennett has loved him for a long time. Sandy has loved him for longer.


	14. Blacksand

Monsters are not made to be loved.

It is a fact that remains very clear to Pitch throughout the centuries.

He is a nightmare, in all of it's harsh, sharp severity, his cold cruelty, his biting tongue and mocking laughter. His fingers are long and thin, spidery, and his nails form claws made to rend and rip through a child's innocent dreams. He is darkness, the shadows that sway and curl over stained greyish skin, a permanent pallor of a gaunt white, lurching corpse suspended with their same fluid motion.

His teeth are yellow, twisted and the insides of his cheeks and lips are marred with small scars from where they catch sometimes, in a wide smirk, and fill his mouth with blood that is slow and turgid, like dripping mercury. He is the ghost of the dead in the hallways, blank soulless eyes that stare, caught somewhere between silver like the edge of a knife and gold like greed, forced in and trapped like a an eclipse blocking out the sun.

He is angles and sharp edges, designed to hurt anyone who gets too close, ear tips spearing through abyssal hair. When he breathes, he breathes an oily mass of tangled darkness, shadows that soak in his skin and lap over his body in a mockery of gentle caresses, knowing this frame so well after all these years.

He is thinner than starvation, protruding bones and dirty skin stretched taut, to ripping point, over his jagged ribcage, his knobbly elbows and pointed knees, and sometimes if he places his hand over his stomach and presses down, he feels the slick movements of the shadows inside pushing to get out.

He is Fear, and he is a painful, severe truth that no creature desires.

He derives a nasty satisfaction from their horror in his presence. The rest of the world would prefer to pretend he doesn't exist, and Pitch fights back, bitterly, resentment cloying and unwholesome in his mouth. He refuses to give up, allow himself to be tamely banished back underneath the bed, nothing more than an old weary shadow dragged out once a year to lurk behind candy filled plastic pumpkins, glittery pink wands held by chubby laughing witches, lurid zombie faces with big yellow teeth and faux-werewolves.

To be hated is his birthright, and Pitch accepts that they will never believe _willingly. _Who would choose to venerate Fear when they could concentrate on soft warmth and the comfort of airy dreams? Who would choose that trembling, ecstatic thrill of adrenaline and sheer terror, hearts thumping, blood pumping, eyes wide and searching the darkness- _do you see me now? _

There are always some, foolhardy few, who seek him out. Well, never Pitch _directly. _Fear as a concept, but he has become so accustomed to this task he is no longer anything outside it, nothing more than a shambling body eager for another taste of that which sustains him. As long as he has existed, his first conscious thought, was to slake the ravenous thirst inside of him that calls for _more, _like a drug, an addiction he can't and won't control.

Pitch cannot fade, but sometimes he wishes he could; when he gets so hungry that his shadows try to rip him apart to feed themselves, and he is stuck in a terrible loop of agony and pleasure, feeding off himself. He prefers to turn the attention of the shadows onto the rest of the world, in turn affording himself some respite.

A respite which reminds him in it's peace of other, lesser things.

Pitch is used to his lot, but that doesn't mean he always likes it. It is all he has ever known, and he reminds himself firmly that he is content, that this emptiness like a lodestone in his heart (Pitch is surprised as anyone else that he actually has one) is normal, but his illusions fall away every time a child smiles with such bright radiant joy it makes some old rusty part of him _physically ache _and he thinks maybe it isn't supposed to be like this.

But Pitch Black is Fear and Fear does not regret. It takes.

It is a very, very long time, but eventually Pitch connects the emptiness that stretches wider with every stare that looks right through him. He decides he is far too weak. He can't remember being so unhappy in the Dark Ages. (He doesn't actually remember much of anything past last week, his life is a permanent vista of shifting nightmares, sweat and screaming in the night. It's difficult to keep time when he never sees daylight.)

He starts with Sanderson. (Somehow it always comes back to that insufferable Dreamweaver.)

Pitch's long grey fingers get used to running over the grainy texture of the blistering dreamsand. The first few times, it hurts too much, such powerful good dreams so close to his darkness, that he can barely cope with standing in the same room as Sanderson's dreamsand. He becomes accustomed to the pain, even though he still winces and hisses when he has to touch it.

The dreamsand proves as resilient as it's master, and refuses to bend to Pitch's will. But he has time, and soon comes to know Sanderson's dreamsand so well he can spot the weaknesses in the dreams and insert his influence, twist and dig at the flaw until it gapes wide and his shadows rush in to pollute the dream. The sand turns black under his fingers, he can feel the potential of the energy thrumming through his body, a heady rush of power like a shot of ecstasy right to his heart.

It's hot, dangerous, addictive.

He thrills on it, comes to crave the fiery taste of dreamsand bending and breaking to his will like the cloying hunger for fear, so blissfully good. He rides the high, creating his first Nightmare and sending her out to weed out more dreams, glutting himself on Sanderson's power. It gets easier and easier as he practices, and Pitch laughs endlessly in the night, hijacking Sanderson's easy skill with dreamweaving. It amuses him that simply because Sanderson is so good at his job, spreading dreams to everyone as efficiently as possible, it makes it so much easier for Pitch to use him, his sand, his skill, his power.

He likes the irony. He wonders what the Sandman will do, what form his soft features will assume- could Pitch incite him to wicked fury?- when he finds out that Pitch has been appropriating his sand, grain by grain, undermining Sanderson's very core while the busy dreamweaver works on, oblivious.

Next is North. He attacks the Pole, uses his black sand to find every believing child on the Globe, which he directs to his own iron globe, long-since dull and empty of believers. Helpfully, it brings all of them together for the next phase of his plan.

Tooth. The teeth are easy to steal, and his horses make quick work of the fairies. Punjam Hy Loo is _hot. _It feels like he is melting, the sun stripping his protective shadows from his skin, making him itchy and restless, sweat pouring off his body underneath his faltering shadow robe. He struggles in the heat and sunlight, but grins victoriously when even when the sun is at it's peak, his newfound power and dark sand helps him withstand it's glare. Belief starts fading, and it's time for the most important, most crucial stage of his plan.

Pitch doesn't really _want _to kill the Sandman. He's a thorn in his side, yes, and he wants to get him out of the way, but he wants Sanderson to be there when he ascends to power, he wants to watch the Dreamweaver's spirit break as he realises this time _Pitch _has beaten him. He doesn't want to kill Sanderson because he wants to watch his gentle core warp and break under Pitch's control just like his dreamsand. Sanderson is regretfully too strong for him to take on directly, beat him back so easily like he can the other Guardians (even that troublesome winter spirit.)

But he will have to make do with the stunned, horrified, _betrayed _look on his sweet face when the arrow thumps into his back, directly between his shoulderblades. He relishes it. He looks so surprised, golden eyes wide, hurt, glossy with- _are those tears? _They are! - mouth parted, an exhale of fear, a hint of tremble in his chubby frame... oh, if he had known Sanderson would shake so wonderfully, his skin pale so beautifully, he would have found excuses to expose him to his anathema so long ago.

Pitch glorifies in it, and the sweetness hits him like a blow. He almost staggers as he spits out some gloating phrase, corruption spreading over Sanderson's robe, dipping underneath, over his glowing skin, over his soft chest and smooth neck and reaching his round face, and _stars _he is so, so very afraid, afraid of what will happen, what he will become, what Pitch will do. It hits Pitch like a punch in the stomach and his skin is on fire, with a far different fire than the sunlight. _Triumph. _

Pitch feels the sand as an extension of himself, a new limb becoming aware even as it numbs to the Sandman, tracing the details of a form he knows well after all these years.

He watches Sandy, drunk and giddy and ecstatic. The darkness spreads over his cheeks, over his lips, dips into his mouth and finds his tongue, down his throat and his lungs, through his body like a cancer, the spikes of his hair, his small ears, until Pitch looks at a perfect, numb statue of Sanderson, only his wide, horrified golden eyes staring out of a black, glittering face, (oh, he does look good in Pitch's colours) and then the darkness closes over even that. The power slams into him and he thinks maybe he throws his head back and lets out a strangled noise that is swallowed by the sound of the sand. It feels like his veins are being burnt from the inside out, white-hot, _glorious _power, the Sandman's core breaking and _submitting to Pitch _and his power becoming Pitch's own.

For half a second, he swears he feels Sanderson's soft form pressing through into his, tears against his cheeks, a tidal wave of heat, brightness, fierce, fierce love, love so broad and gentle, encompassing every child, every adult, every living creature broken or whole, in a single, momentous instant, his entire world flashes to muted colours of gold and harsh, striking black, himself a gloating master rising tall over his decaying body _andhegivesin-_

The sand emits a low rumble like thunder as the Sandman dies.

He barely feels the fall, his mind still occupied as Sanderson's dreamsand, from everywhere, all over the globe, darkens and distorts, gathering into nightmare sand and festooning his layer with glittering sand cobwebs. The isle of the Sleepy Sands, so long Sanderson's stronghold, sinks into the blackness of the oceanic depths and resurfaces in haunted alleyways, forming thousands of glittering, hungry nightmare horses. Every dream, every wish, is Pitch's, every sweetness turned black and monstrous as he is, wiping all trace of Sanderson from this world until there is nothing but darkness, and fear, and _Pitch. _

He is mad, gloriously, wonderfully mad, motionless and limp on the floors of his caverns and laughing, because their belief feels incredible and he has never been so strong, surely. He could walk on the sun; he is truly unlimited now! It gives him so much more power, flexibility, he feels limitless and weightless, and it makes it so much easier to pretend he can't feel that throbbing emptiness in his core, that flash of heat he'd felt when Sanderson's core flooded into his own, momentarily lighting everything in lazy strands of gold.

He has no idea how long he lies there, feeling belief in himself swell and watching the lights of the Guardians die and flicker. He knows he should begin preparing for Easter. Prepare to lure the winter spirit away from the other weakened Guardians. He doesn't. He lies there, instead, an odd, rusty chuckle forcing it's way out of old dead lungs, wheezing and unpracticed, tears trickling out of his too-bright eyes as the power races through his veins, simultaneously wonderful and painful.

He can't breathe. He barely holds onto his body. His shadows chase around the dark edges and he sees a million different black spaces at once, closets and underneath beds and cupboards underneath sinks and tunred-off ovens and behind curtains and under duvets and attic spaces and basements and in desks and pencil cases and car bonnets and boots and underneath dressers and inside wardrobes and in pockets and between the pages of books and mattress slats and the toes of trainers and under hats and inside toasters and kettles and microwaves and in monitors and behind picture frames and underneath rugs and propped open doors and shutters and lampshades and against skin under clothes and behind eyes in hearts and minds in thoughts and wishes and hungry longings and fears and -

He thinks he loses himself for a while.

Pitch wakes up, slumping in one of his hanging cages, long legs spilling out. The door is carelessly ajar; he hangs alongside the tooth fairies, idly blasting sand at them just for the enjoyment of watching the cages rock and their squeaks of alarm. Maybe its the rushing rivers of dark sand thundering past, hundreds of nightmares, their gold eyes pinpricks. He swipes some, plays it around his elongated claws, admiring the sand's versatility.

He wonders if Sanderson ever admired his sand thus.

He directs some sand into a facsimile of Sanderson, for what reason he knows not, perhaps to replay his moment of triumph, to recapture the potent thrill of his complete control over the Sandman's deteriorating shell, the panic, so rich, an effusive fragrance that makes his blood warm even in memory. The sand creates a life-size form, although Pitch only intends to make one as large as his hand. He blinks and chuckles to himself. Precision with this much raw power and energy is difficult. He wonders how Sanderson coped. His smile grows wicked. Not well enough.

It isn't until it snaps and snarls at him that he abruptly realises he's created a nightmare with Sanderson's face.

He laughs until his sides physically hurt. The nightmare glares at him with it's bright, burning citron eyes. There's a stillness there, a rawness not quite present in his mares, something in the tension of the small frame, tiny clawed hands gripping the floor of the cage, fanged teeth glinting cruelly as it cocks it's head, a dark tongue flickering out of it's lips, glittering indigo, tasting the air for fear.

There's something bitterly ironic about using Sanderson's form, sweet dreams and comfort and light, for Pitch's darkness and corruption. He extends a hand towards it curiously, wondering what it scents.

The nightmare skitters closer, moving in an awkward, feral crouch, its head tilting as it sniffs at his palm and then pushes its cheek worshipfully against his hand. It feels grainy and rough, but underneath, there is a mocking hint of softness, of give, that plays at the shape its supposed to represent. A dim recognition comes from it, _mastermakerking, _and Pitch hums, feeling it like a chime in his mind, tugging his fingers through the messy locks of jet black hair. The hair is deceptive, it feels stiff, wiry, like horse hair, but it looks cloudkissed soft. Grains of sand float free.

"What a pretty nightmare," he says quietly, and then laughs, bitterly.

_Mastermakerking, _the nightmare purrs, but there is hunger in its eyes, base, animal hunger. Brutal and powerful want looks both fitting and horrific on Sanderson's beatific face.

"Are you hungry, little one?" he murmurs, and closes his eyes, concentrating. Pitch feels its influence stirring at his emotions, and his breath grows shaky.

_Alone._

He remembers every time he is walked through as if he is not even there, every moment a child's eyes looked straight past him without realising his presence, the thousands of years down in the darkness fighting for his sanity, for something, anything. He remembers echoing emptiness, clawing at his own chest for some burst of sensation, _why am I real to myself and no one else _praying that someone would come, just end it all, the shadows clawing for control, scraping his mind blank, howling unheard into the darkness until blood runs down his chin and over his neck, hot copper taste in his mouth, stumbling out of dark spaces and shouting in the faces of humans that walk right through him, tearing something inside just a little more every time until he wonders if he's floating apart, the tangled oily mass that makes up his form disintegrating as if it's being slowly snipped away each time _someone please please just end it all i cant i dont want to please what have i ever done to deserve this make it end makeitend whywontyoujustseeme_-

_That's enough! _

He slams his barriers up, panting as if he's just run a marathon, curling over himself and digging his clawed hands against his forearms, raking bloody lines that split open a thousand old scars, the pain grounding himself as he fights his way back from the abyss.

The nightmare observes him, and its lips part as it inhales, its eyes fluttering closed as it arches towards him. The rapturous expression on its face deepens, and a light tremble runs through its small body. Its claws _dig _into the metal of the cage, carving grooves as it tosses its head, hissing, forked indigo tongue flickering out to lap at the air, nostrils flaring.

It's odd behavior, but Pitch has never made a humanoid nightmare before. It seems disappointed once he reins in his fear, enough to give it a taste, and crawls closer in its curiously graceful crouch, a slow smirk splitting its face that looks so wicked with vicious, starved promise Pitch feels a sharp, shocking throb of heat in response. It is so surprising it pulls a gasp from his mouth. The nightmare wearing Sanderson's face licks its full lips, hooded eyes, sleepy smile quirking, tentacles that look suspiciously like _whips _rising from the darkness around its glittering body.

"_Stop," _he orders, knowing it has to comply, because he'd _shot the little demon in the back, _he is not going to deal with-

The nightmare ignores him.

Purposefully, it slides into his lap and pushes its head underneath his chin, black tendrils of sand slipping around his wrists in a manner which plays at restraints without holding him back. The nightmare is cold, like the metal around Pitch, and its weight is barely negligible, but to Pitch it feels like a tonne has settled over his lap, too much.

Pitch is frozen.

He is vaguely aware of his heart beating a rabbit's pace, blood rushing to his face, his breath stuck somewhere in his throat, minute shudders jerking his muscles. Terror is wakening within him, a growing rush of anxiety and insecurity, and the nightmare sighs with the sound of shifting sand.

He has no idea what to do.

Pitch has never experienced a friendly touch in his entire life- and if he ever has, he can't remember it- and while he has seen humans touching each other before it seems bizarre, to play at this facsimile with a puppet shaped like his ancient enemy. He's fairly certain it violates some sort of rule, and it has never occurred to him before to shape things blind to his ugliness, willing, obedient to his every whim, so long as he holds the power, out of his shadows and sand.

But Pitch Black is a monster and monsters do not regret, they _take._

He denies to the end of his days that his hands shake when he awkwardly raises them, not daring to touch back but making a loose cage of thin, spidery limbs around the dark nightmare, and even though he is corrupted Sanderson's form is still perfect to embrace, his small frame allows the nightmare to tuck itself securely against Pitch's longer, skinnier one, and if he closes his eyes and breathes through the lump in his throat he can pretend it's safe, he's in control, that simultaneously it's not happening whilst every sense desperately analyses it.

The nightmare presses it's face against his neck, exhales softly. He feels the dim fluctuations of it's silent thought, feral and hungry, flicker and waver like a candle. _Won't let you be alone mastermakerking,_ the nightmare promises.It's incredibly out of character for a nightmare – he dares even say it is offering a cold comfort, though possessive, though warped and dark and flirting with a hint of sadistic glee. The nightmare somehow _knows _how easily it can break Pitch with this face.

His control over the nightmare seems removed, echoing, hollow, but Pitch puts it down to the emotions, old and rough and tarnished clawing their way out of the dark pit of their imprisonment while Pitch closes his eyes tightly because all this abundance of dark sand must be irritating them; it's difficult to breathe, and there's a funny sensation in his chest that feels like the cursed life is being constricted out of him.

_Too much._

Like a coward, Pitch flees from it all, chasing darkness and shadows, throws himself into a nightmare. He haunts the night, needles the Guardians, works on his plan, pretends the brief, foolish moment of weakness has never happened.

The nightmare form of Sanderson Mansnoozie is left alone, swinging in the cage, its eyes glowing so brightly gold they shine like lanterns from its black face.

It waits, patiently.

The time comes barely a day later. The nightmare rises to its feet, clutching the bars of its cage with its sharp little clawed hands. Its dagger-mouth splits into a sharklike smile and its feverishly golden eyes quiver with something so powerful repressed the tooth fairies shy away, shrinking weakly to the backs of their cages and huddling together.

The nightmare tilts its face up like it is watching some great battle they cannot see. It breathes a silent laugh of triumph, and collapses into black dust.

* * *

The whip coils around Pitch's wrist like a burning brand. His eyes go wide with horror as his stomach lurches, and that is the only time he has to react before he is yanked like a toy into the air, dragged to the feet of the Sandman, who shines so powerfully gold, his smile cold and quickened to a hungry revenge, eyes hard and fierce, radiating so much heat Pitch is desperately thankful for the cold snow beneath him, lest the fire of Sanderson's gaze strip him to the core.

Slowly, deliberately, he shakes his finger, _tut-tut, you've been a terrible monster, Pitch Black._

Then he winds his arm and his soft fist hits Pitch's chin, the force behind the blow sending him jerking upwards, pinwheeling up and up, teeth crashing together and head snapping back, still anchored by the agonising chain around his wrist.

The hit shakes all the way into his brain and Pitch is enveloped in blackness.

When he wakes up, everything is gone.

The hole inside of him stretches so wide he clutches at himself, trying to hold his body together, hardly aware of what hoarse, shrieking cries of desperation are coming out of his mouth now. It's pointless.

The Guardians watch him pitilessly, triumph bright and gloating, and Pitch runs, almost tripping over himself in his need to flee, to get away, but even then they can't leave him to his defeat.

Pitch Black is a monster and he expects no mercy, but he can't deny it hurts when he catches Sanderson's eyes as he is dragged away, and the Sandman waves, with a small, _knowing_ smile.

* * *

.

* * *

Sandy is a Guardian and he is made to be adored.

Everything about himself calls others to him, his gentle smile promises cheeriness, his glow chases away darkness, the warmth and softness of his little body, his small hands and feet that can't hit or kick and hurt, draw them all like flies to honey. His core is sleepy and inviting, his powers tender and seductive, lulling everyone that meets him to immediately come to trust and love him. He learns to love them all too, their hearts, bravely wishing, their dreams, at first glance he sees them all and he cherishes each and every dream, simple or complex, bitter and cold or young and trusting. He loves fiercely, burningly, until long after even their light is extinguished.

He never speaks and he tells no secrets, but he hears so many, desires and wishes whispered into his delicate ear, and though his aurous eyes are heavy with knowledge and hooded with the ancient passing of years, even though his sweet flesh cages a tempestuous and ravenous spirit that none other sees, a coldness and ruthlessness never explored, the Guardians find it so much easier to focus on what they understand, the childishness, the pure soul and innocent facade. Even after all these years they can't quite seem to bring together all that Sandy is in their minds. Perhaps they prefer to forget he's half of a whole, an ancient and powerful force as deep as tides and as mysterious, a pulling, dragging power slowly turning the wheel of innovation, the relentless drive _forwards._

Sanderson Mansnoozie is a mess of contradictions. He likes to whip and hurt and break just as much as the one he is so often breaking, but he also loves sweetness, softness, warmth and tenderness and the burgeoning shoots of young wishes, nurtured into raging desires he watches burn like fire in the disguised hearts, disguised to all but him. Sandy's core is dreams, and he is all dreams, the dreams of a psychotic killer who thirsts for blood and a lustful partner and a small child dreaming of adventure.

All at once he is present and ever-sleeping, chasing the stars half lost in the spinning fugue of deep dreamstate, old empires in the taste of his tongue, wistful, hurting, aching from old loss but with a heart so buoyant his feet barely touch the ground. Sandy knows all dreams, even ones that are left unsaid, hears all wishes, piles them all into a grain of sand and throws those glittering strands with a smirk and a wave.

Even monsters dream.

Sandy is sweet and kind and loving, but he is also a vengeful, passionate creature, and the burning hearts of stars are not to be trifled with. He reads Pitch Black's dreams, dreams of companionship and praise, but does not use them, because even Sandy is not cruel enough to use the last of Pitch's humanity against him.

Sandy is many things, but everyone agrees that he is not a monster.

He alters his route one night, in order to pass late over Burgess. When he arrives, the town is shuttered and dark, the lonely glow of streetlamps the only illumination. Darkness hangs heavy, turgid, unmoving, but there is nothing sentient within. Sandy's eyes are powerful in the night- bright light hurts him almost as much as it does Pitch Black, Sandy may be light against the darkness but he is also a nocturnal creature- and he drops low over the treetops of the woods surrounding Burgess, heading for an uncovered pond like a milky white mirror for the moon.

There is no winter spirit in residence, artful frost ferns gilding the rough, bare trunks of the trees. Sandy feels the pull of broken dreams here and thinks of the thousand other nameless voiceless creatures that drowned in this pond, now the domain of a ice-boy only. Sandy has a special affinity for the voiceless, the broken, the disregarded.

Perhaps it's why he continues listening for the wishes of one particular monster's decaying heart.

He comes to a blighted area in the earth, a clearing bare of any vegetation and stained dark, like a funeral pyre. Splinters of wood are cast like confetti, and deep clawing scratches in the earth and tree trunks remain, like the inscription of a gravestone. The Moon watches him disapprovingly and he feels the weight of his ancient judgement on his shoulders.

He does not care. He swore once to protect the children of the world, not be the Man in the Moon's tamed lapdog. He counts many years more than the Man in the Moon, and that is not even in the brief, instant calendars of men, but by the slow turnings of stars. He does _not _appreciate an isolated upstart trying to dictate his actions, let alone one that is still barely more than an adolescent in the eyes of his people.

Sandy sits down and begins to casually weave a dream, concentrating on threading it together. Every so often, he glances an amused eye up at the Moon, who is still glowering down at him.

_Leave him be, _says the Man in the Moon finally, laboriously. _Let him suffer._

_Oh, _says Sandy, tucking in a strand of the dream, _I fully intend to. _He winks at the Moon salaciously. _It's _my _turn._

It takes a few more hours, but time is nothing to one as old as Sandy. He spins his dreams, occasionally humming to himself and exchanging the odd sniping comment with the Man in the Moon. He is just tying off the last knots on the dream when finally the dirt shifts.

Sandy ignores it, unconcerned. It takes another hour for the desperate shade underneath to claw away enough dirt to unbury it's grimy, tattered hand, lumps of flesh withering from creaking, stark bone stained grey. Sandy watches with muted interest as the hand scrabbles for purchase, unveiling a shaking wrist, a thin forearm, long before ripped to shreds of dead grey skin, even the bone has claw marks scraped into it, marrow visible. Sandy smiles.

He props his chin up on his hand and sits resting against a tree as Pitch painstakingly drags himself out of the darkness, his physical body so broken and abused it does not even look human anymore. By all rights of nature, Pitch should not be able to move with arms that are flaps of torn skin over bone, the muscles and ligaments gnawed out from within by sharp shadowy teeth, but Sandy and Pitch have never really bothered to answer to Mother Nature. The grey corpse manages to get halfway out before it collapses, still inside the hole from waist-down.

Displeased, Sandy notes that the nightmares have completely destroyed his chest cavity. Only the heart remains - indestructible and surrounded by a briar of thick, greasy sentient shadows with white eyes and glittering teeth - though it slides grotesquely in the mangled chest, bits of shattered bone and ragged skin like old parchment surrounding it, unconnected to any circulatory system. All of his other internal organs have long since been eaten or ripped apart by hungry nightmares.

Pitch appears to have passed out, head of patchy black hair – he's torn a lot of it out in his torment – slumped against the ground. There is the thunder of hooves from below, the nightmares drawn to the vulnerability of Pitch's unconscious mind.

_That's quite enough, _says Sandy, and his dreams form into a coruscating wave of gold that tucks itself tenderly around the limp skeleton, mangled parts of bone and partially decomposed body sliding out of the torn up flesh sack. What is left of the skin immediately begins to char and burn, Pitch's shadows too weak to resist the purifying fire of Sandy's powers.

Despite the macabre display of the filthy and abused corpse falling to pieces before his eyes, that one sign is the only thing to actually make Sandy frown with worry. Pitch's core is very, very weak, still functioning – that tangled black chained heart in his chest is his physical representation, just like Sandy's sand – but it has only once in their long years been weak to the point where simple proximity to Sandy's core begins to destroy it.

With a bitter quirk of the lip he remembers a flood of poisonous fear and the charring of his own core, a darkness that has yet to abate, throbbing low in his spine. Sand rolls over Pitch's body, concealing him from view. When it slowly dissipates, both Sandman and Boogeyman are not present within, banished right to the scintillating heart of Dreamland.

Sandy moves like a spider, spinning an elaborate web around the shattered dark fly, trails of dreamsand wrapping tenderly around a well-known form, the soothing hush of waves outside deceptive, they are far from the surface. The walls are a gently sloping cavern of dreamsand, other dreamers trapped eternally in Sandy's embrace until their bodies decay around their dreaming minds, fading into his sand and swelling his power.

When he is done, Pitch Black is nothing more than another gently pulsating cocoon deep in the very heart of Dreamland. Even monsters can lose themselves in the giving sweetness of dreams. Even nightmares can _submit. _

Over time, Sandy finds more and more of his awareness slip away in that particular cocoon in his heart as Pitch's shadows, growing in strength, slowly begin to corrupt the dreams around them. His body is fixing itself, bones snapping into place and a new covering of skin and muscle over them. When he emerges from that cocoon, he will look far healthier than he had been when he attacked them last Easter.

But Sandy isn't currently interested in his body, but his mind.

He keeps Pitch's dreamself close by, a shifting figure of golden sand touched with black, skinny and lonely and desperate. The dreamself crawls into his lap most nights, shivers and cries against his shoulders, whispers his loneliness through the cracks in Sandy's heart, his craving for touch, for fixing. Sandy indulges him, kisses the monster sweetly and deeply as his Guardian nature will allow and forgives Pitch for falling in love with him, because Sandy is a creature made to be adored.

_It's something in the look you give, _Pitch tells him softly. _How it feels to touch you. _He looks down at his palms, starburst gold, a sluggish vein of black shadow. _I don't want to think about it. I don't think I'll be able to stop._

Smiling, Sandy tells him, _I hate you. I want to break you for the pleasure of hearing you scream and knowing you're in pain because of me. _He tilts his head, and his eyes shine, beautiful and lovely like a sweet dream_. _He leans up and kisses Pitch. His mouth tastes like starlight.

_I know, _says Pitch, and even in his dreamself form his forearms split open like they have been cut, his wishes bleeding out like blood as Sandy's cruel words hurt him, far more viciously then any whip. _Will you do that, one day? _He craves it even as he fears it, Sandy knows.

_Who says I am not already? _Sandy pats his hand and lets Pitch hurt. He has promised to let Pitch suffer after all, and Sandy keeps his promises.

* * *

It takes many rotations of the seasons, but eventually Pitch Black opens his eyes and steps, fully formed, from a glittering cage of nightmare sand. He is tall once more, smudged grey skin healthy and glowing, eclipse eyes as piercing as ever. Shadows lap caressingly over his skin like they are playing at being lovers. Jagged and sharp and cruel, the monster's power spreads like a cancer through the heart of Dreamland, turning more than half carelessly onyx as he takes his departure, not bothering to see his host in person. Sandy is more than aware of his leaving, and chooses to let him go without confrontation.

Somehow, it hurts far more than Pitch wants it to.

He does not know quite why Sandy brought him to Dreamland to allow his body and mind to separate, giving his shadows time to fix his vessel. Perhaps it is because Sandy likes watching his broken dreamself struggle with it's wishes, just as Pitch had relished the corruption of Sandy's nightmare form. Perhaps it is revenge. Sandy plays a long game, but he always, always keeps his promises, and pays his debts. He tells himself that it's not because Sandy too has enjoyed softly-relished kisses between dusk and twilight, stained black and honey-gold moving together, right in all the ways apart from the fact it is wrong, and knows that Sandy's Guardian goodness can never allow him to be so kind except for when Pitch is breaking himself apart under his attention and slowly, slowly, learning to put the pieces back together.

It seems they are both too toxic to one another to love without striving to destroy the other.

Monsters are not made to be loved, and Pitch knows this, so he turns away and sinks back into the darkness from whence he came.


End file.
